• Florida,  Ghost Orchids,  Outdoors,  Travel & Places,  Wildscape Photo

    Orchid Recovery Program Video

    Chris was contacted by the Illinois Orchid Society in conjunction with the Orchid Recovery Program to utilize the video he put together of the sphinx moth pollinating the ghost orchid. You can see their video below with Chris’ video spliced in at around 3:43. We’re hoping that maybe this summer we can get to Florida in order to get some better photos of the sphinx moth pollinating the ghost orchids. Chris has something he’s trying to rig up. Of course that all depends on our job situation! But, don’t worry, you haven’t seen the last of ghost orchids from us!

  • Florida Trail

    Florida Trail Tales 3: SR 60 to US 192

    As we left River Ranch I noticed the sky had clouded over a bit. We had a road walk to connect to another road walk, this time we were headed for S.R. 60, listed in the book as being incredibly full of traffic and quite dangerous to walk on because of a narrow shoulder and sloped grass sides. Our go to find-somewhere-at-20-miles-and-stealth wasn’t going to work here. So, we’d looked on the map and decided that we’d go to where it said “information” on the map at one of the lock’s at the Kissimmee River and S.R. 60 and hope it was good enough to pitch our tent. On our…

  • Creative,  Food,  Gardening,  Photography,  Shameless Stuff,  Wildscape Photo

    Published!!!

    This whole thing fell to luck, really. I happened to check my email in Orlando when we were on the Florida Trail and see an email from a woman who said she was with Woman’s Day magazine. Apparently she’d found a photo of a tomato of mine from a few years ago and wanted permission to use it in a special issue called Woman’s Day Garden and Outdoor Living. I was a bit suspicious so I did some Googling and found out that she was completely legit. I figured she might need a full res photo or something so I emailed her back and gave her my number since I…

  • Outdoors,  Photography,  Texas,  Travel & Places,  Wildscape Photo

    Awaiting Spring at Tandy Hills

    Chris and I ventured to Tandy Hills on Friday to check on the trout lilies for the season. While we did find a lot of the plants up and growing, we didn’t find a single bloom. We couldn’t decide if we were too late or a bit early, even though last year we saw blooms at about two weeks prior to this time. So, who knows? It has been dry this year so perhaps a rain event would trigger some blooms? If not, I guess I will have to wait until next year. I didn’t leave empty handed photograph wise, though. We did find a few flowers poking out and…

  • Family,  Friends

    MS = Someone Who Doesn’t Deserve It

    Meet one of my best friends Michelle. We go back to some point in time during the summer of 1998 while cruising in the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean. Then we went to college together for a couple of years, weathered some weird patches, and now she’s married with a nearly three year old girl in east Texas. Two years ago after the birth of Kylen she started having some vision problems in addition to some other health issues that lead to a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. MS is a disease affecting the central nervous system which means it can affect movement and the use of all sorts of…

  • Thoughts

    Spring Link Roundup

    Things are starting to flush out in green here and a few things are blooming. However, it is very dry here and we need some rain to get more spring wildflowers growing here in Texas. Flower photos to come! First up, I added a widget that allows you to bookmark a blog posting in a social networking site or to email it. It will be at the very end of a post. Yes, I know I am decades behind in this trend, but I thought it would be very useful for the posts that are most interesting (I’m hoping there are some!). So, there ya go! And a few links…

  • Family,  Gardening,  Pets

    Sprouting

    I went by the plot today to check on how things were going. The last we’d seen were that the carrots were up and the potatoes were thriving. This is the shed where anyone in the garden can use tools and organic fertilizers and pesticides. It is super organized with printed recipes for making the pesticides or fertilizers, too. My mom’s onions have been up for awhile and are doing great. We’ve got five tomato plants that we bought from the store. Chris got a bit overzealous with some orange oil for bug prevention and the next day two tomatoes looked to bite the dust. So, he replaced them a…

  • Family

    Zooing with Zoe

    Wee little Zoe loves the zoo and we love taking her! We went out for a little adventure last week with Mimi and Uncle Chris so she could see all the animals. Her favorites included the elephants, giraffes, penguins, alligators and crocodiles. An elephant enjoying a dirt bath! Enamored with the crocodiles! I’m kinda surprised she likes them so much! Sharing a drink with Mimi. Spring is coming!! Looking at the gazelle’s. We initially walked by them and then she got excited and had to go back and check them out. I didn’t take a lot of photos and was much more in the moment instead. I’m just amazed at…