• Food,  Thoughts

    Going Veg

    If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed by email! Thanks for visiting!About a year and a half ago, before we went on the AT I tried a week of going vegetarian while Chris was on a business trip. It was really easy for me then, I was able to cook what I wanted and try new recipes. I haven’t tried this again until the last two weeks. We’re back in Beaumont for our job for about two months and I got the idea to try going vegetarian again. I thought it would be easy but we eat out most of the time and it…

  • Creative,  Crochet

    Inching Along

    Working on the Moss Fern Wrap using Di.ve’ Stampato Glitter yarn. This yarn was a trick to start with and I skipped the foundation single crochet for a general chain instead. This yarn is very slippery. I also must’ve left most of my hooks in storage when we moved from Florida so I am using an F instead of a G which is resulting in a slightly tighter pattern than the one shown in the link above. Liking the pattern so far! Not sure what I will even use the shawl for but, hey, why not make it anyway? I bought the yarn on sale, 5 for $10 at a…

  • Family,  Other Random Events

    Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

    A few weeks ago we went to Scarborough Fair, a renaissance festival south of Dallas. The last time I had gone was in highschool; I think it was a reward trip for all of the kids who passed the standardized test that we had to take. It has definitely grown in the last 12-15 years and since it was the weekend it was especially busy. There were lots of things to lust over but I enjoyed looking at the costumes. Chris’ brother has been volunteering as part of the cast for the last several years and spends time learning how to speak as they did during Tudor era England as…

  • Outdoors,  Wildflowers

    Texas Wildflowers: Vicia villosa, vetch

    I feel fairly certain that this is Vicia villosa, though I am up for someone informing me otherwise. It was growing with the pinkroot and clematis near the Big Thicket. While there are native vetches, this one is a non-native introduced from Europe and has now naturalized across a lot of the U.S. One website states it was introduced as a forage crop for livestock while another states that the seedpods are poisonous to cattle, so your guess is as good as mine! A few butterflies enjoy using vetch (this one and others) as a host plant such as the silvery blue and the orange sulphur. If you are interested…

  • Thoughts

    How Oceanic Wilderness got its name.

    My brother recently texted me a photo of a book Oceanic Wilderness, but published in 2007 long after I started blogging as Oceanic Wilderness. It made me think that perhaps I should do a post on how I even came up with this name since I rarely blog about anything ocean related. So. I have a degree in marine biology. I graduated in 2002 from Texas A&M University and was gung-ho on using that degree for what it was intended, not to teach or go into a field that was not marine related. *snort* look where I am now! It should be noted that most marine biology majors don’t really…

  • Outdoors

    Wildlife Encounters: Speckled King Snake

    I was a bit late in getting the perfect shot of this speckled king snake. We were driving down a narrow dirt road through private property, returning from the Preserve when I noticed a bit late that the stick laying across the edge of the road was in fact a speckled king snake. A quick check in the side mirror after we’d passed it showed it moving but I wasn’t sure if it was because we’d just ran over it. We hopped out and found that it was just fine and had coiled up as we passed by. I ran back to the truck to pull the camera out of…

  • Creative,  Crochet

    Made | 2 Quilts and an Afghan

    I recently had a bout of creativity and managed to get three blankets quickly made. The first two are for Connie’s twin girls, Eowyn and Tessa. Before we left for the Florida Trail mom was going through her fabric stash and getting rid of a lot of it, ok most of it, and I pulled a few pieces out that I thought would be fun to make as blankets. At first I didn’t really know who to make it for but then I realized I could make them for Connie’s kids. I crocheted her first son, Gabriel, a blanket, wow, nearly seven years ago, when I first learned to crochet.…

  • Florida Trail

    Florida Trail Tales 9: S.R. 221 to S.R. 319

    After resupplying in Shady Grove we got back on the trail through more private logging areas. This time we mostly followed well drained logging roads so there was no water involved—mostly! We had a few miles stretch between U.S. 221 before we crossed over U.S. 19. This was more of a major artery into Perry than the other road had been so hitching would have decent here. We took a short break to dry out our tent in the afternoon sun. We had continuous problems with dew on the tent and had to constantly take time in the morning or afternoon breaks to let it dry. We entered an area…

  • Gardening

    Growing | Flowers

    Here’s some eye candy, full of colors, of what was blooming two weeks ago in my parents’ yard. Verbena on the left and two kinds of spiderwort, Tridescantia, on the right. The amaryllis blooms were on their way out, but a few lingered. Clockwise: Oxalis, snapdragons, good question with a fly, phlox. Nicotiana, honeysuckle, columbine. I think the one on top is a coneflower that is getting ready to bloom but mom, if you’re reading, feel free to correct me! We’ve worked hard on getting the side garden going, adding new plants and seeds and I spent a few evenings pulling weeds. Chris has brought his variegated obsession (ok, I…