Last week I was able to escape into the field for a few hours to a local field site and in between counting trees, logging dbh, and estimating height, I scoped out some of the things going on in the area. This isn’t a place anyone would regularly trek, especially given a lot of the […]
Meeting the Pitcher Plant Mining Moth (Exyra semicrocea)
A few years ago I heard about pitcher plant mining moths on a podcast, probably the In Defense of Plants podcast but I can’t figure out which episode, and I’ve wanted to see one ever since. We’ve been out to the pitcher plants at Watson Preserve and the Pitcher Plant Bog in the Big Thicket […]
12 Miles in Sam Houston National Forest
*write up is at the end of the post!* Trees are banded white to symbolize red-cockaded woodpecker nesting trees. Japanese climbing fern, an invasive species, that has covered the forest here. They may have treated this area but likely it is only brown from winter freezes—it will definitely be back. Sparse-lobed Grapefern, Sceptridium biternatum American […]
Easter 2021 at Mission Tejas State Park
White fringetree, Chionanthus virginicus Every time I look back at photos from last year I can’t believe I never wrote about hikes or trips here on the blog. Burn out was flaming high and the only way to tame it was to lay low and focus on other priorities. Thankfully I’m getting back into the […]
Along Beech Creek
I know we’re about to get really going with spring and all that it has to offer but today we’re going to go back to October and into the Big Thicket with a jaunt along Beech Creek in the Beech Creek Unit of the Preserve. Lobelia cardinalis was the star of the creek, the only […]
Extreme Low Tide at Pine Gully Park
On Sunday we made a trek to southeast Houston to Maas Plant Nursery in Seabrook. Unfortunately the trip was a bust, a lot of plants weren’t out quite yet for spring and their native plant selection was lower than it has been in years past. We’d promised Forest a trip to a playground and just […]
First Day Hike – 2022
Chris and I got out on Saturday morning to get a First Day hike in at Tandy Hills. Every year the Friends of Tandy Hills hosts a First Day hike over the perimeter trail, which is usually done in a group. This year they continued last year’s option of going solo and emailing them and […]
Thanksgiving Out West
I had better write something about Thanksgiving or else I will let the months pass by and I will never get around to writing here. And to be honest, I have never finished editing last Thanksgiving’s photos! Or writing here…or finishing up writing about Alaska. I truly have been trying to let go of my […]
Snapshots from Goose Island State Park
Our trip to Goose Island State Park in early October was lovely, though the mosquitoes and the heat were still ramped up onto “high”. But we made do and enjoyed what we could. The Goose Island Oak still stands tall, though quite weathered and who knows how many more decades (or centuries) it still has […]
October Wanderings at Lake Creek Preserve
A few weeks ago we escaped the constant weekend work that has been pouring concrete raised beds and went for an early morning hike at Lake Creek Preserve. Chris and I had visited by ourselves in July while Forest was visiting grandparents and the mosquitoes were terrible then. I guess I didn’t end up writing […]
