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A Brush with a Saddleback
There are three saddlebacks on the backside of this banana leaf—but we actually found a total of four later on! I have always wanted to see a saddleback caterpillar, Acharia stimulea, in person. Chris found one in the field a few years ago and texted me a photo of it and that has been the closest I’ve ever come to seeing one. Last week that changed. Forest and I were in the garden and he was asking for some of the small bananas that fruit on our pink banana trees. He likes to play with them and has since he was a toddler. So, I walked into the flower bed…
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Life Lately | August 2020
Thinking: My first thought is—I was overly ambitious to want to try a 10 mile bike ride at 1pm during a heat advisory day (I’m drafting this on Saturday)! *Laughs in Texas in August* I cut it short to 5 miles and hope to do the other 5 this evening. Tomorrow (or today when this posts) I’ll go earlier. My second thought is, Hurricane Laura delivered us barely any rain from a far outer rain band on Wednesday afternoon and that was that. The shift into Cameron, Louisiana really put most of the Houston area out of the range of anything and other than some storm surge in Galveston it…
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Snow in the Thicket
In late June we trekked back to Watson Preserve and the Big Thicket to see what might be blooming in early summer. I’d had word that the snowy orchids, Platanthera nivea, were blooming and they were a species I had not seen before. Chris says he had seem them but I wanted to get my own glimpse. They weren’t a disappointment! Found primarily across the coastal south and southeast, east Texas is their western most part of their range. Found within pitcher plant bogs, wet savannas and seeps, these are species you will only find in certain locations and of course being that these locations are increasingly scarce, the orchids…
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Exploring a New Section on the Lone Star Trail
Flowering Spurge, Euphorbia corollata Last weekend we ventured out to do a new to us section on the Lone Star Trail. We originally wanted to hike starting at the Cotton Creek Cemetery Road trailhead near Huntsville but when we pulled up to turn down the road we found it looked like it went through a ranch and there was a no tresspassing sign. A man in a truck pulled up after he saw us sitting there contemplating our next step and after we told him what we were looking for he said that it was down a different road behind us. I pulled up the PDF maps and he was…
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Quick Check-In
Hey! Yes, I’ve fallen off the face of the blogosphere! I should probably do this as a Life Lately post but I’m short of time so this will be a quick update and eventually I’ll do something a bit more in depth. Highlights: +Online school is going. That’s about it…going. I wish he was at school but we’re opting for online at the moment. Needless to say, during the week trying to navigate that plus work keeps Chris and I both busy. We are alternating who is doing school during the week so we can each get time at the office to actually work. More on that later! +Tropical systems—are…
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August Insects
Yellow Star Grass, Hypoxis hirsuta Last weekend I noticed that the mountain mint was abuzz with insects so I grabbed my camera to see what I could a snapshot of. It turned out we had quite a few interesting characters in the garden! Common Thread-waisted Wasp, Ammophila procera Two-striped Forceptail, Aphylla williamsoni I caught this one out of the side of my eye and thought it was a small bird at first. When it finally settled I realized it was a really large dragonfly and one I hadn’t seen before. Since it was quite distinctive it was relatively easy to figure out what it was when I popped it into…
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Denali By Bus: Part IV
One of the highlights on any trip to Denali is of course the chance to see brown bears! And while we had encountered them from a distance on our way into the park, seeing them up close like this was amazing! This is really just me spamming you with brown bear photos! Gah, it really makes you want to reach out and touch them–they look so cuddly! Instead, they would rip you to pieces! (Oh, yeah, something I’ve been meaning to share here but haven’t yet but this seems like the appropriate place: Grizzly Bear Attack: A Breakdown. This is by a hiking acquaintance I met back at Billy Goat…
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Denali By Bus: Part III
Eventually we made it to the Eielson Visitors Center, where a decent crowd from earlier buses were already inside. Bathrooms, water bottle refilling stations, a gift shop, and other exhibits were open to learn more about Denali. I was captivated by the artistry of these art quilts that captured the essence of the park. I had my long lens on and for some reason I’m not finding a lot of photos that didn’t involve my zoom lens so I guess I didn’t take any phone photos. Why, past self, why???? I believe we had about thirty minutes at the visitor center and if we wanted to board the same bus…
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Pre-Birthday Hike on the Lone Star Trail
Our last hiking adventure has been a few weeks now, the Friday before my birthday. I took the day off and after we’d decided to back out of our initial idea of going to the beach, we opted instead to go for a hike on the LST and then head over and check on our Texas pipevine plants to see if they had set any seeds. Arrowhead Rattlebox, Crotalaria sagittalis I noticed this interesting plant on the way into our hike and on our way back out I kept an eye on it. I hadn’t noticed it before but after I identified it as a crotalaria I was surprised I…