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Fresh Air at Tandy Hills
Castilleja purpurea, purple paintbrush Wild onion flowers New trail Where the old trail was… On Good Friday we drove up to Ft. Worth for the Easter weekend. We got up early and made good time, stopping just twice to change and feed Forest. Always in a Tex-Mex mood when I hit the DFW area (because, seriously, Houston doesn’t compare to Tex-Mex in DFW) we went to Mexican Inn on East Lancaster in Ft. Worth, my parent’s old stomping grounds growing up. It was only a hop and skip across the road to Tandy Hills and I wanted to scope out the wildflowers. Unfortunately we were a few weeks early for…
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Life Snippets | 7
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Early Spring Blooms
I keep thinking that maybe we’ll actually catch up in the garden, get ahead of the new growth and get the weeds in check, but it is a slow going process. I just don’t have the time to devote to it as I normally do and Chris is busy doing other yard work a lot of the time and isn’t as focused on the flower garden as I am. Still, the garden is growing and blooming away. Anomatheca laxa, woodland painted petals Moss coming up in a pot on the potting bench. The pine tree log ‘pot’ is filling in nicely. The leaves on the fig tree are coming out…
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A Garden View: April 2014 and April 2015
April 2, 2014 March 31, 2015 Biggest differences: more weeds this year, leaves for mulch because we haven’t mulched again—yet, and the pine tree is gone. Last year was much more maintained! The irises near the front door are blooming in both photos, though hard to see.
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Sunday Hike On the Chinquapin Trail at Huntsville State Park
It was 2012 the last time we were at Huntsville State Park. We were planning to camp last weekend but bad weather on Saturday deterred us from venturing out. I think had we not had Forest we might have attempted it, but it worked in our favor anyway as Forest came down with a nasty cough and it was probably better he wasn’t outside in a tent overnight. Chris still wanted to get out and do something on Sunday so instead of hitting up Sam Houston National Forest again we opted for Huntsville State Park as they have a diverse trail system and we enjoyed our last visit there. The…
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Early Spring Hike at WG Jones State Forest
Carolina jessamine, Gelsemium sempervirens was in bloom everywhere. A pileated woodpecker hole??? Rubus trivialis, southern dewberry Last weekend we jaunted back over to Jones State Forest for a short hike. Google Earth was giving me a pain but my estimate is that we walked a short 2.25-2.5 mile loop. We started at the most western parking lot on the south side of FM 1488 and headed down the west perimeter ‘trail’, Jones Trail. We turned east on the Upper Horsepen Trail and then cut-up to the north on Cochran Trail before heading back west on the Middle Lake Trail. Before getting to the lake we cut back north on the…
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Happy Spring!
How fitting that the iris outside our front door decided to open this morning! I’m loving the warmer weather lately and the later sunsets. I’m so happy that we’re heading into spring and anticipating the spring wildflower blooms around the state.
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Life in Words | 5 Years
Five years ago today Chris and I turned into Panther and Ridley. We climbed out of my dad’s car at Amicalola Falls State Park, weighed our backpacks and signed the register at the gift shop, then ducked under the stone arch just outside and embarked on a side trail called the Approach Trail that would take us to Springer Mountain and the official start of the Appalachian Trail. It was chilly down in the lower elevations and threatening to rain. Weather conditions only worsened as we climbed in elevation that day and I wondered why on Earth I had thought up this harebrained idea the year before. By the time…
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Current Reads & Favorites
+ Fitbit! I got one for Christmas from my parents and while I initially thought I wouldn’t be that into it, I really do love it! I took some time off from using it back in January but ramped it up in February. The goal is to get 10K steps a day. Prior to having Forest I don’t doubt this wasn’t a problem because I either worked out every day or did yard work in the evenings. Now it is much harder. I’ve started helping out my step count by working out during lunches when the weather is permitting and if I am not far off from my step count…
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Life Snippets | 6