Category: Citizen Science

Proud of Me

happy_cert
Pin and paper acquired. My first educational certification in many years.

I am proud to say that last Thursday I got my dragonfly pin and my certificate to show I am a Certified Texas Master Naturalist. I can’t say it was hard work, because it was too much fun, but it did require an investment of time and effort! In addition to the weekly classes for three months, I also did 20+ additional hours of advanced training, and over 40 hours of volunteering.

We also got sweet hummingbird pins to thank us for participating in the Earth Day work. They do love their pins here. (They also love cooking; the potluck featured perhaps the most delicious cabbage dish EVER cooked; this bunch needs a cookbook.)

pin
Here I am all happy as heck, with our chapter President and our membership chair.

I’m really glad I ran into Dorothy Meyer at an essential oil class and got to talking to her about the group! They sure are an interesting bunch, with so much to teach me. I just want to soak up all the local lore!

What Did the Native Americans Here Eat?

We also had a very interesting speaker, Prof. Alston Thoms, an anthropologist from Texas A&M. He is an expert on Native American history, and focused the talk for us on what people ate in past centuries in this area. It was lots of roots and berries, cooked in earth ovens (which he does yearly for his grad students). The most “duh” moment came when he asked what the most common food source would have been. It took a while to realize that of course, it was the white-tailed deer. It’s been in the area as long as humans have, and always on the list for what’s for dinner!

I could listen to this guy all day long. I wish he could come back and talk more about the Native Americans currently in Texas. I met some who live near Aquarena Springs a few years ago, and they were really knowledgeable about herbs and healing.

thoms
Alston Thoms, getting the heck out of Milano.

Plant ID with a Pro!

woods
Monique Reed (center) along with El Camino Real Chapter Master Naturalists at the Hermits’ Rest ranch woodland area.

April 14 2018 was an exciting day at the Hermits’ Rest. It was chilly most of the day and incredibly windy ALL day, but that didn’t stop an intrepid band of El Camino Real Chapter Master Naturalists, along with genuine botanist Monique Reed from Texas A&M, to scour the ranch for plants.

Why did we do that?

It turns out that not all that many plants of Milam County have been documented in the SM Tracy Herbarium, and as citizen scientists, we want to help. Our band was led by Nancy Webber, who has done an amazing job documenting what plants are documented, as well as what is still needed. She and another couple of the Master Naturalists who came along have a great working knowledge of the local flora.

However, Monique Reed has an entire Latin dictionary’s worth of plant names in her head. It was amazing to watch her work. There was only one plant that she didn’t at least get a clue about (the “mysterious carrot-like plant”). She looked high and low, from the largest osage orange tree (Maclura pomifera) to the teeniest, and I mean teeniest, little flowers imaginable. She spent quite some time kneeling in the dirt seeing “what’s down there.”

Continue reading “Plant ID with a Pro!”