-
Exploring the Roy E. Larsen Sandyland Sanctuary
If there’s one place in Texas that might have tinges of Florida in it, it would be the Roy E. Larsen Sandyland Sanctuary. For starters, this is a very well managed tract of land protected by The Nature Conservancy. When we arrived at the park we saw that there had recently been a burn throughout many areas of the pinelands. It was hard not to imagine thickets of saw palmetto in the understory but of course this is where habitats diverge and reality hits that this is Texas, not Florida. Chris had been to the sanctuary several years ago but it was my first time. He knew where a few…
-
Camping at Village Creek State Park
So, I went back through my blog trying to find a post about Village Creek State Park. I only found this one but that post isn’t even specifically about the park itself. The first time Chris and I visited the park was sometime in the fall/winter of 2010. We drove down from San Augustine, Texas on a few days off from field work in Sabine National Forest. I think we visited in conjunction with a visit to the Big Thicket units down near VCSP, but either I didn’t take photos or I didn’t bother to blog about it. Kind of weird for me not to have written about that trip,…
-
Valentine’s Day Camping | A Movie
-
Friday Five | 4
Mercy Street on PBS. This is coming on after Downton Abbey for the next few weeks. I’m liking it but wishing it was longer than 6 episodes. I’m glad Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) is stretching his acting chops but disappointed they are dragging out the morphine addiction thing. Yeah, we know, Civil War + morphine = addiction. Good times! This Outlander Season 2 Trailer! Two podcasts: Native Plant Podcast and In Defense of Plants Podcast. Both are excellent! Overtone color conditioner! Y’all might remember my pink hair on the Appalachian Trail. I’ve wanted to redo it ever since but haven’t wanted to deal with some of the…
-
Potato Planting!
We’ve never had good success with potatoes but that’s not going to stop us from trying yet again. We’ve gone with Red LaSoda potatoes in the past. This year we opted to go with Yukon Gold as an alternative. They were cut and cured in our kitchen for a few weeks and we finally got a chance to get them in the ground this afternoon. Forest, as you see, is getting more and more interested in being outside and exploring. He’s not quite able to be left to just play by himself in close proximity to us as he’s very fond of pulling plants he shouldn’t, and is also quite…
-
Bottomland Explorations at SFA State Park
Wetlands. They are highly undervalued but very awesome ecosystems. It was in college that I pinpointed the fact that I really loved wetlands and decided to focus on them as part of my marine biology degree. Looking more deeply, it was salt marshes that I had an affinity for, something I grew up loving as part of family vacations to the Texas and Florida coasts. Of course from there I learned about freshwater wetlands, and with our living in Florida for 8 years we became wetland maniacs. Wetlands are happening places! With our camping trip a few weekends ago, we took to the trails the morning we were to pack…
-
(Mostly) Raptors at Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge
Two weekends ago when we went to Stephen F. Austin State Park just west of Houston, I got on Google Maps to see what other parks would be around the area. Close by was the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge, a place I had always wanted to visit but we’d never made it down that direction. Many of the trails were closed at the state park due to mud so when we packed up Sunday morning we headed over to the refuge to have lunch and see what we would see. There were several trails and a five mile scenic drive we could take. The refuge office was closed…
-
Friday Five | 3
Another fast week! Childless Man Gets a C-Section: a podcast via The Longest Shortest Time. While the title suggests it is all about a man understanding a c-section, really the episode is about c-sections in general. I may have cried while listening. Monica Lewinsky: The Price of Shame: I was in college when the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal was going on and while I had an ear slightly turned to it all, I didn’t pay that much attention. However, I did really find her talk eloquent and very appropriate for today’s internet society. I’ve definitely found that internet shaming has seeped into real life with people finding it easier to lose empathy…
-
January 2016 Book Report
In my effort to read all the books this year, I made some progress with reading this month. Here’s the lowdown: Completed The Care and Management of Lies by Jaqueline Winspear. I’m a huge fan of historical fiction and as I was trolling through the Overdrive app for our library this one piqued my interest. I rated it 3/5 stars because of some character development issues and some weird language/writing at the beginning. The book is set in WWI England and we see the beginning of the war from three different vantage points. Because of this I believe it easily could have been split into two books. Also, there was…
-
Evening Trail Explorations | SFA State Park
After we returned to the campsite and Forest played around for awhile, I decided to take him for a walk while Chris tried to get a campfire going. The wood was wet from the rain and it was proving to be a slow going feat. Chasing a toddler around was fun for awhile but was definitely on the exhausting end, so a walk was definitely in order. I hadn’t meant to dive off onto a trail, intending to just walk the large loop in the campground, but we eventually found ourselves at the Brazos River. The trail was a little muddy and puddled here and there, but that didn’t stop…