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Pineland Hibiscus Blooms in the Garden
Last year I bought pineland hibiscus (Hibiscus aculeatus) seeds from Chill Hill Farms in the Florida Panhandle. Well, my plants are finally big enough to start blooming and I am so delighted! Pineland hibiscus are relatively rare in Texas, primarily seen only around the Big Thicket in Tyler and Hardin counties. They are a little more common in western Louisiana and then much more common in Florida. Once these go to seed, I’m planning to start quite a bit more and I’m tempted to put one plant out in the main garden to see what the deer do. The deer generally eat any other hibiscus plant I’ve put out there…
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Impermanence
The last time I had film developed was almost a year ago. Recently, I had four rolls I wanted developed so back in June I sent them off. This time I only had the film developed and no scans done because I got a film scanner back at Christmas! It’s a bit cheaper and my next step to make it even a little more cheaper is to see if I can find a camera shop or photo lab within a 30 minute drive from me so I can get it developed locally. Either way, stockpiling some film for once or twice a year isn’t a big deal but film development…
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Good Things on a Sunday Morning *Monday Edition* | 3
Hello! My head hasn’t been in the right space to be spending much time here so here’s a post to get me back into the groove again! I have been very engrossed in working to save Fairfield Lake State Park, something I wrote about here a few months ago. Things have really hit the fan in the last month after TPWD voted to use eminent domain to save the state park. The developer, who took ownership of the park, lake and adjacent properties on June 1st, has since gone on a whirlwind PR tour in Freestone county to sway local opinion. There was a last minute PR dog and pony…
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Chance meeting with Lindheimer’s beebalm (Monarda lindheimeri)
In early June I drove up to Fort Parker State Park hang out with a couple of friends for the weekend. Typically we get an Airbnb or a cabin at Fort Boggy State Park, but Stephanie and her husband recently bought a travel trailer and we have upgraded our options for meetups! I’ll write more on that trip later, but before I left I scouted directions on how to get there. I chose a slightly slower route in favor of looking for wildflowers and the chance to iNat in some lesser known locations. That decision paid off really well! I wasn’t more than 30 minutes from home when I spied,…
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Respite on Drakes Creek
It was oppressively hot this weekend, as it has been for the last two weeks. Spring, our wonderfully mild spring, went *poof* once the calendar hit June. I’m glad we had such mild temperatures for so long, it made being outside much more enjoyable. Now? I’m re-thinking my twice daily laps around the yard at work. Opening the office door this last week has been met with the feeling of the inside of a furnace. So much for the pleasant tour about the yard looking for wildlife–I’m now hurrying to get my steps in and stretch my legs and back inside to the cool AC. Even outside time after dinner…
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Lazy Summer Days
Well, it isn’t quite as lazy of a summer as Rusty is having lounging in the office window to sunbathe for hours every day, but I did go into this summer with the intentions to move a lot more slowly and enjoy life’s simple pleasures a bit more. We met my parents in Corsicana last Friday to drop Forest off with them for a week and this weekend he will transition over to Chris’ mom’s house for another week, so we’ve been kid free the almost the last week. We took some of that time and went over to Gus Engeling WMA to do some botanizing and exploration and I…
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Mothing at Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve
A couple of years ago Chris bought lights and gear to set up so we could go mothing when we were camping, or even in our own backyard. What is mothing? Well, it’s looking for moths, of course! You can do it in a very basic manner, using a flashlight or porch light and try to attract moths that way, which does work to a limited extent. Or you can buy special lights, get a white cloth like a sheet or something similar, hang it up between some trees, and you can really get going with attracting moths! We’ve mothed in our own backyard and at many places we’ve camped…
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Return of the Orange Dogs
Over the last year or two we’ve planted out several new understory trees on the side yard, including several Hercules’ club, Zanthoxylum clava-herculis. Hercules’ club are one of the native host plants for giant swallowtail butterflies and I’d wanted get some established for years before we finally buckled down and bought some trees. Previously, and really still, they can be found on our citrus plants (same Family – Rutaceae), but now we have an alternative to move the caterpillars to if we see too many leave are being noshed by these little friends of ours. I dug out my macro lens for these photos and after editing the photos I…
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Good Things on Sunday Morning | 2
I was in a nature funk the last three or four weeks but it seems to be lifting. *phew* Most definitely a good thing! Some good things from this week: Notes from Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter: I read Spare (listened) a few months ago and really enjoyed it, though I didn’t particularly like the short chapter lengths. This was an interesting inside into life as a celebrity memoir ghostwriter. I know only a little about ghostwriting from a cousin who has ghostwritten romance novels in the last decade so it was interesting to see this perspective from a high profile ghostwriter. I can get the perspective of someone ghostwriting something such…
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The Irises of Spring
Iris season came and went pretty quickly in our yard. I say quickly, but in reality it was just that I was barely down near the pond during their blooming period so I wasn’t exactly noticing their blooms. I spent a lot more of my time up in the edible garden working on those beds there and trying to stay on top of it all–which of course I have not stayed on top of it all. I’m far behind on so much and will likely never catch up this season. I was thinking a bit the other day about how much time I used to spend outside before I had…
