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Year in Review | Best of 2018
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed by email! Thanks for visiting!Well, 2018 is closing out and I honestly can’t believe it. We’re inching closer to the end of the decade and it feels like yesterday we were at the beginning of the decade. And as per usual it is time to start reflecting on the previous year and thinking about the next. First, I think I should review my word for the year, which was apparently strong and of course I forgot about until I went to look it up. I think I tried to be strong in some ways. I’ve been fairly…
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Bushwhacking in Sam Houston National Forest
In mid-October Chris mentioned that he wanted to go look for a particular rare plant, Bartonia texana, aka Texas screwstem. It is frequently on the list of protected plants we survey for but here’s the kicker, the photos available for this plant are few and not many people see this plant. It also doesn’t have visible vegetation on it throughout most of the year, sending a flower spike up only when it is time to bloom. Luckily, it also fits a particular habitat niche so you would only come across it in certain locations, and these locations aren’t places most people are going to be trekking to. So, it really…
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Forest Friday | Growing Up Edition
I took that top photo four years ago yesterday. I remember taking it, too, as I was folding laundry one evening and Forest was being his chunkalunk self! It must have been a warmer December day because of the diaper only outfit, which is how he spent a lot of those first three to six months, hanging out in just a diaper! Then on Wednesday night we went to my studio to hang out for a bit and for some reason he finally noticed the baby chair sitting there, where it’s been for well over a year waiting for me to sell it or donate it. (It’s going to Goodwill…
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Exploring Mission Tejas State Park Part III
The final post for Mission Tejas State Park! A few little morsels between photos but a write-up at the end! Indigo Milk Cap, Lactarius indigo: I was so excited to see this! The state park had shared a photo on social media a few days prior to our hike of this cool mushroom and I had seen someone else share their find in Ohio, so I put it on my bucket list to see one of these. We kept our eyes peeled for them but it was Chris who found them in an early morning hike before Forest and I got out of the tent. We went back later to…
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Surprise Pipevine Swallowtail!
Imagine my surprise when I got home at lunch today to find a pipevine swallowtail had eclosed in the butterfly cage! The pipevine chrysalides I have in the cage have been in there since September and I fully expected them to continue over wintering until spring. I still have two monarchs that have been darkening the last few days and figured I would see them out soon so when I saw a butterfly on the bottom of the cage I assumed it was one of them. But no, I was completely surprised! When I checked underneath the rock that the chrysalis had eclosed from I noticed it was the one…
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Exploring Mission Tejas State Park Part II
Hidden away on the Olen Matchett Trail near a remote corner at the front of Mission Tejas State Park are a set of old CCC tubs. Constructed when the CCC workers had set up camp to construct the state park, the tubs are a few feet downhill from a spring. Before our dinner the night we stayed at the state park we made one last hike to see what this interestingly labeled point on the state park map meant. At a slope behind the top of a hill we found the set of tubs. The spring was at the top, the clean rinsing tub in the middle, and the bathing…
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Christmas Cookies
We were supposed to be camping this weekend. And then the weather forecast last week stated temperatures in the 40s and rain starting Friday afternoon into early Saturday morning, tapering off around breakfast. The rain started later than anticipated on Friday so the rain became heavy by nightfall. The problem pipe draining our front yard still hadn’t been solved; Chris had been unable to pinpoint the actual issue. Friday night I started packing up my clothes and Forest’s clothes and a few other items, with Chris to bring in the storage bins for packing the rest of the gear later in the evening. However, the rain never let up. Secretly…
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On Sunday I got on our NextDoor group and saw that several people were posting about President Bush’s funeral train supposedly traversing a track that runs through a town very nearby. I can hear the train horns from inside our house, that’s how near this track is. Sure enough, I looked up the route and it was set to go through Magnolia sometime around lunch or just after. I told Chris about it and thought it would be neat to go. Honestly, when I thought about going I didn’t imagine that a ton of people would be going considering it was the middle of a work day. Little did I…
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Hanging Around Camp at Mission Tejas State Park | Wordless Wednesday
(Ok, so nearly wordless, but you can’t quite tell here but the piece of wood to the right of the fire pit, there’s a pipe coming out of it. yes, that’s the water source. It’s usually near the electrical outlet, typically near the parking. Let me say, getting water when smoke is blowing your direction isn’t fun. Poor planning on whoever did this!)
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Exploring Mission Tejas State Park Part I
Salvia azurea Liatris elegans Passiflora lutea Oak mistletoe, Phoradendron leucarpum, I think! American Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana Texas Bull Nettle, Cnidoscolus texanus Black walnut, Juglans nigra Before we arrived at the state park that last weekend in October, Chris had noted that there was some kind of trail run going on in the park. I was a little surprised considering the park isn’t huge, but after looking at the park map and seeing that it was adjacent to a Davy Crockett National Forest tract I knew that there was much more here to be explored. The park was very busy when we checked in and we were unable to get to…