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I Wrote A Book!
Y’all. I have been slogging away on my Florida Trail memoir for 2.5 years. I swore way back when I started it in August 2011 that it’d only take a year and since then I had several ambitious moments when I said “I’m gonna finish it by such and such time” and those times came and went. But finally two days ago I wrote the last sentence. Or, well, the last sentence of my first draft. I have a feeling I’ll be adding an epilogue and reworking the ending. In all, the first draft is 111,100 words long. I really didn’t go into our hike with the intention of writing…
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The Great Houston Snow of 2014
Oh, our weather people down here. I really don’t know what they are thinking. Last Friday it was going to be Snow! Ice! Craziness!!! And then what did it do? Not a whole heck of a lot. It did rain and some bridges might have had some ice, but for the most part it was giant over reaction. And then today? It was supposed to sleet over night and snow today. Snow! Ice! More Craziness! Schools and businesses were closed once again. Chris and I got up this morning to well, not much. It had rained, but there wasn’t even really any ice. The radar suggested ice in our location…
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Eagles & Snakes
Last weekend we were working on our penny porch (more on that soon!) when a bird flew by the edge of the pond and made a distinct call. Without looking up Chris said it was an eagle. The bird landed within view in a tree on our neighbor’s property and I went inside to get my camera. My photos aren’t good, they are more like ‘proof’ photos. The eagle is real! We hopped in the canoe to see about paddling closer to the tree they were on, however I couldn’t find them despite Chris continuing to tell me ‘There they are!’ This meant that my photos turned out pretty crappy,…
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Bats and a Mantis
For months and months we had a single bat holed up in one of our bat boxes. Then sometime in December a few friends joined in. Chris noted at one point that there may have been seven or so in there at one point. The numbers are fluctuating at the moment, down to a couple, up a few. I guess the bats are coming in when they migrate through. This makes us hopeful for a good population of bats using the house this summer. Just the other day a juvenile woodpecker—we weren’t able to identify it yet—attempted to make the bat house its home too. Or maybe the wood looked…
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Evening Fog
It’s been a drizzly and rainy day here today. Grey, cloudy, dreary. At least the temperature was respectable, in the 60s. This after two nights of deep freezes, something we’re not used to getting often. The rain is appreciated. It was nearing an inch at lunch and nearing two this evening when we got home. The depression in the front yard had ponded and the creeks we cross were swollen with muddy waters. ‘Our’ pond was rushing over the spillway and had inched up along the perimeter in some areas, though hadn’t come up much in our yard at all. It is within an inch or two of the new…
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The Angry Garden
As the video says, the garden wasn’t happy with a deep freeze. I’m already looking forward to the 70* weather that is predicted at the end of the week.
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Early January at Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge
Over the weekend we wanted to get out and do something away, something that didn’t involve working on our house. I mentioned to Chris I had wanted to visit Balcones Canyonlands NWR after having seen it on the map over the last few years. It was northwest of town and not on our typical route when we visit Austin, so exploring this part of town was a nice diversion from our usual routine. We opted for the Doeskin Ranch area of the refuge as it has the most hiking trails. I’m a little disappointed there aren’tmore trails than the five-ish miles, but I bet there is opportunity for cross country…
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Reconsidering The Florida Trail As A Valuable Long Trail
This post I’ve been ruminating on for oh, probably eight months now a year now (can you tell this has been sitting in my drafts folder for awhile?). It first started out with me a little upset that a hiking blog I followed was lamenting that their hike through a section of remote wilderness ended up being on a converted rails-to-trails section of trail rather than up and over mountains as they had initially thought, therefore the trail had been flat which had equated it to being boring. And then yesterday six months ago or so, the Facebook group ‘Thru-Hiking’ reshared a photo from the Florida Trail Association and asked…