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Lepidopterans of Brazos Bend State Park
If you are a blogger like me you may have a stash of drafts sitting in your writing platform waiting to be published. Many of mine will never see the light of day but I thought I should dig this one out and blow the dust off of it and share some photos from a few years ago that I intended to post but never did! One or two might have made it into a wrap-up post about a camping trip but I believe the majority haven’t been shared. It’s mostly an eye-candy post, to feast your eyes on the beauty of the lepidopterans! Looks like state parks are potentially…
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Escaping to the Lone Star Trail
On Good Friday we made our escape—we hit the Lone Star Trail in Sam Houston National Forest. I was going stir crazy and as much as I love being at home and can make things work, I wanted to see “outside”—outside itself but outside as in an area greater than our neighborhood. Plus, I was missing wildflower season and I wanted to attempt to see more flowers before the heat of summer settled in. Very local and in-town locations I knew would be busier and we wanted to avoid those places. After seeing some other folks in other areas of the state and country go hiking and often at empty…
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Iris Season by the Pond
It’s been a good spring for the irises down by the pond. The species plants of Iris virginica have really thrived and grown into large clumps over the last few years. Chris has also been adding various cultivars of Louisiana iris as well and those have really added some color to the pond fringe! Don’t ask about specific names because those are long gone but we can still admire the form and colors of these flowers. The front ROW ditch where we’d also planted various Louisiana irises over the years has not resulted in any blooms this year, though the plants themselves have spread well. A good cleaning up around…
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Forest’s Rainbow Afghan
Saturday evening I finally finished Forest’s rainbow afghan that he requested last fall. His original request was for a rainbow blanket with red and blue on the ends. My original thought was to use the yarn I already had but then thinking about having to switch yarn every couple of rows didn’t sound appealing. Forest and I ended up finding and agreeing on the self striping Lion Brand Mandala Yarn in Gnome, Cupid, and Spirit colorways. And I LOVE IT! Honestly, I want it for myself which means I’m going to borrow it as much as possible! Hah! I started on it sometime last November but royally screwed up the…
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Banded Hairstreak | Satyrium calanus
This is a video. Give it a few seconds to load…read and come back. Yesterday morning I finished doing the major weeding to one of our beds. It was the last bed that needed to be done and now everything is really on a maintenance mode—which means, continue going through and picking out the cherry laurel, elm, and pine seedlings that will germinate over the course of the next month or two. It’s never ending! As I was removing little strands of basket grass I noticed something drop down and land on the Carolina ruellia. I looked over and it was a tiny butterfly and incredibly docile. I stopped pulling…
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Into Glacier Bay
Look for the mountain goat! One of the highlights of our Alaskan cruise was that our itinerary took us into Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. I honestly didn’t grasp the significance of our ability to get into this park via the ship until we started making our way through the bay itself. Cruise ships are limited to one or two a day into the park and throughout our trip there we were the only large ship I saw entering the bay. We saw several fishing boats and smaller touring boats but for the most part the bay was very quiet from ocean vessel traffic. We were also boarded by…
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Smuggler’s Cove | Skagway, AK
After we left Yakutania Point we continued on our way down the trail northward, not quite sure where exactly it would take us. If all else failed we could turn around and follow our steps back the way we came. Squashberry, Viburnum edule Parmelia sp. lichens—these were really cool! The walk down these trails continued to be just as enticing as the walk to Yakutania Point, with spongy ground to walk on and moss, ferns, and lichens covering all manner of things in the forest. Licorice Fern, Polypodium glycyrrhiza The rock slabs here were a welcome diversion along the trail. More wonderful lichens… And I would have loved to have…
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Neighborhood Nature | 2
Late last week Forest and I hit up the empty lot across the street to see what kind of nature we could find. Turns out there is quite a bit going on in that little lot! Texas Vervain Verbena halei — I might have to keep an eye on this particular plant, if it doesn’t get mowed, and collect some seed to throw into the garden. Metriorrhynchomiris dislocatus — Since we’re just poking around and going slowly I’ve been trying to look for little bugs a bit more than I usually do. Texas Ragwort, Senecio ampullaceus Scaphoideus incisus – cute little leaf hopper nymph! I wouldn’t have noticed it if…
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Exploring Yakutania Point | Skagway, AK
Let’s go on a virtual hike since most of us aren’t venturing out any longer. During our brief foray into Skagway, AK we asked some of the rangers in the national park visitor center in town if there was a hiking trail nearby. We’d exhausted our patience for walking up and down the main drag in town and really needed to do something before we got back on the ship for the evening. The rangers gave us some vague directions to get to a hiking trail just past the airport and when we found this sign we knew we’d made it to the right place. Crossing the Skagway River… And…
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Life Lately | Early April 2020
I’m going to abandon my typical platform for writing these and just free write, ok? It’s been a fairly typical spring here in the greater Houston area, mild with bits of warmer days and tinges of humidity popping in here and there. Last night we received a cool front that dropped highs back down into the 60s once again and brought rain and thunderstorms along with it. And for someone who has pretty much been a homebody for the last two weeks, and in general, (exceptions have been two quick trips to the office to use my desktop up there) the rain is making me even more of a homebody.…