Thoughts
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Roadside Rudbeckias
I have wanted to grow some of our more gregarious Rudbeckia species for several years but it wasn’t until this year, in my small native plant bed inside the deer fence, that I was able to do this. I’m always enamored with how they look when I spot them on roadsides. These were on the road near the Hickory Creek Savannah Unit of the Big Thicket, where the Sundew Trail is located. I spotted them as we were leaving that unit back in May and had Chris pull over so I could take a few photos. I believe these are Rudbeckia texana but there’s also R. maxima and R. grandiflora…
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Stale Cigarettes
In recent years there has been talk about how we’re losing certain words and even accents in our lexicon as language adapts and changes. One thing I hadn’t considered was lost smells, or at least fading smells. Over the last weekend I was in DFW to visit some friends and after we’d spent some time browsing and becoming over stimulated with the Christmas décor at Decorator’s Warehouse, we were all lamenting how we should have eaten lunch before embarking on our shopping excursion. Now, I eat on a fairly regular schedule, as Chris will attest to, so I knew better than to leave our campsite without eating lunch. But my…
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Life Lately | October 2023
The newly minted 9 year old with his leopard print Snuggie. Thinking: I started drafting this in early September, intending to do a Life Lately for that month but stopped writing. So here’s an expansion from that month: Forest turned 9 last month! 9!!!! We are fully into the tween years and I’m enjoying it so far. Next steps are to try to cultivate more independence, which he’s doing on his own in some manner, but needs a push in some areas. Plus chores. More chores need to be on the agenda! The best kiddo ever! Also, I’m very heavily into “Wow, I’m middle aged now” thoughts. They strike at…
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May 2023 at the Big Thicket Pitcher Plant Bog
In May, we spent a weekend around the Big Thicket, the same weekend we went to the Solo Tract. There will be several posts from this weekend as I divvy them up and share here. On Saturday evening before we went to the Watson Preserve to do some mothing, we stopped in at the Big Thicket Pitcher Plant bog to eat dinner, drive-thru Whataburger. I don’t think I had been to the bog in the early evening before so it was nice seeing it in a different light, literally. Sarracenia alata, yellow pitcher plants in the Big Thicket’s Pitcher Plant Bog Rhexia lutea, yellow meadow beauty–my favorite of the Rhexia…
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The Big Thicket Solo Tract | May 2023
I first heard about the Solo Tract at the Big Thicket from Linda Leinen when she started a blog series called A Year of Going Solo earlier this year. Since seeing her posts, I have dipped into this tract myself twice, the most recent time back in May. It’s very close to the Big Thicket’s Interpretive Center which makes it easy to access if you are short on time but need to get into the Thicket for a few moments. Some highlights from that trip: Wooly rosemallow, Hibiscus lasiocarpos blooming. Tall green milkweed, Asclepias hirtella—I was very excited to see this one in bloom! I love when I come across…
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Life Lately | July 2023
Hello. Three posts in July. Four in June. I had already been slowing down posting here this spring but I didn’t mean for things to drop to a trickle. I have been absorbed in writing elsewhere and then even those other places have dropped off the cliff. I’ve been inside my head, drafting posts, drafting emails, drafting other essays, but not showing up here. It isn’t for lack of content but lack of time and then, in attention. I’ve written here several times about the plight of Fairfield Lake State Park but I’ve slowly morphed into taking a more active role in advocating for the preservation of the park, with…
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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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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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2000s Nostalgia
I had already been thinking about writing about some music that I’ve been listening to lately that has transported me to the 2000s but today’s news that Heather Armstrong, aka Dooce, passed away yesterday by suicide has me (and the entire 2000s blogosphere) reeling and falling even further into the 2000s reminiscing. Let’s rewind to me reading somewhere on the internet recently that Feist had a new album out. I went to Spotify to listen to the new album but suddenly got a craving for 2000s Feist—the Feist of Mushaboom, 1,2,3,4, I Feel it All, and My Moon My Man. Why? Because they and other musicians and songs encapsulate that…
