Master Naturalists – Page 19 – The Hermits' Rest

Caving in the Old ‘Hood

cave1 — I had always known the mysterious fenced off areas in the middle of the neighborhoods, and some of the seemingly random “parks” were really where developers were hesitant to put houses because of caves.

My bucket list is one item smaller. Ever since I saw sealed over cave openings in my old neighborhood (the Brushy Creek/Cat Hollow/Avery Ranch area in Williamson County), I wanted to see what was under the neighborhood. The area is in a limestone karst formation (quite near many limestone quarriees). After a cave collapsed pretty near my old house last year, I REALLY wanted to go in, so when I saw a session at the Texas Master Naturalist Conference on “Caving in Avery Ranch” I signed up.

cave4 — The mysterious entry, and all the caving equipment. Note helmets!

We carpooled over to the Avery Ranch Cave Preserve,* which is always fun (we learn so much from each other). Sure enough, there, right across from a park and another fenced in patch of land (hmm, wonder why?) is this little preserve. In it, was a locked metal door. Mysterious!

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Get Ready for a Lot of Posts!

While you haven’t heard from me in a while, you will now. I wasn’t posting about nature, because I was out in nature having experiences, as well as learning new things, at the Texas Master Naturalist Conference over the weekend. I haven’t had so much fun in a long time.

Before sharing all my activities, I wanted to acknowledge our group, the El Camino Real Chapter, who sent 14 or 16 (I forget) people to the conference. That is impressive for a small place like Milam County.

It’s the 20th anniversary of the whole program, so it’s impressive to see how many are that old!

Our group was acknowledged for ten years of being active. And I learned a lot about those ten years talking with people over the weekend. Sigh. All volunteer organizations have similar issues, but still manage to hang together!

We were all very proud of Donna Lewis, our Vice President, who was one of only three people honored for achieving 5,000 volunteer hours. That is one active volunteer in a place with fewer options than most (we don’t have any state parks, etc., to volunteer at).

Next I’ll share some of my adventures with you. Stay tuned.

Sour Grapes, Not All Bad

grapes1 — I’m holding up the big bucket so Burt can concentrate on picking grapes.

After learning all about foraging from Sean Wall in our Master Naturalist training, I’ve been pretty excited to see what we can find around the Hermits’ Rest that we can eat or turn into something useful.

I know I could have done a lot more with all those dewberries besides make cobbler. I just need to be brave enough to try canning. Maybe next year!

The midsummer bounty that magically appears every year are mustang grapes, which are native to the area and a great food source for animals. We have two trees that are completely covered in grape vines, plus a lot across the road from the gate.

In fact, I thought the grape vines were dying, they looked so black last week. Nope, it was all grapes.

Now, I knew my Master Naturalist friend Burt likes to make wine, mead, applejack, and other tasty beverages. And I’d been looking for a reason to invite him and his wife, Jenecia (and their daughter to be), over to see the ranch. So, I announced that I have all the free mustang grapes a vintner could want, for free. (A couple of other folks had lots, too; it’s a great year for the mustang grape.)

They said they’d come by over the weekend, and so they did.

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A One-Hour Urban Experiment

salvia_gregii — Salvia gregii is a really popular landscape plant. It’s supposed to be native, but I’ve never seen any that wasn’t put there by someone.

During the four days of the week when I’m in Austin, I do yoga three days at lunch. But on Wednesdays, I’m on my own. Sometimes I just work, but often I take a walk around the area, which has some interesting plantings and natural areas as well. The office is on land that used to be full of deer when my kids were little. Now there is a lot more office space and less deer land.

Anyway, I decided to give myself a challenge last Wednesday, which was to see how many new iNaturalist observations I could make during the lunch hour. I wanted to focus mainly on things that were blooming or bearing fruit, but if something else interesting showed up, I’d take advantage of that.

So, off I went with my trusty iPhone X, which takes reasonable pictures, sometimes. I took pictures of the native/nativized plants that had been planted around the buildings first. There were some really beautiful agaves that I just had to record, even though I know they are landscape plants. Look at this Queen Victoria Agave!

agave — It’s pretty, even if it’s not native.

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In the News!

A quick share, because I am proud that the article I submitted last week to the Cameron Herald got published just as I wrote it, even with the informal parts intact. I was testing to see if light-heartedness would go over all right, and it did.

By the way, this is a fun paper to read, and subscriptions to the online version are very reasonable. What the heck, read about all the police activity and financial intrigue in a small town! Click the link above to subscribe.

I was a little disappointed to see that they used the photo of me grinning my head off rather than the one of Dr. Thoms, but I can see why they would want to feature local residents. The Thorndale paper also published the article, but with no pictures. I guess I am a byline collector, now.

Cameron_Herald_May_31_2018

My sister texted me to say I was in the newspaper. I said, yes, I know. Check the byline! It’s great to use my skills to volunteer for a good cause and help educate folks about the history of our area. We have it worked out where I and another volunteer alternate articles, so it’s not too much work, either.

Also…

Who can spot the typo?

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.

May Day!

Here is some horse nettle to help you celebrate May Day.

Today is one of my favorite holidays! It’s May Day, or Beltane in the Celtic tradition. It’s a day when traditionally folks left baskets of flowers on friends’ and relatives’ doorsteps. It’s also a day to celebrate all those happy forest creatures out there having babies, birds building nests (hello to our barn swallows), and generally the fertility of spring.

Mockingbird Real Estate Failure

In Hermit’s Rest fertility news, we have been watching some mockingbirds try to build a nest in their favorite location, where they’ve been trying for at least the past three years. Where’s that? Sigh. One of the tractors. This year I think it’s the backhoe. They even follow it when Lee moves it. They like the high part where the bucket bends. It’s not a place that is great for successful bird parenting. We always feel bad for them and hope they eventually find another spot.

News, as in Paper

I did get my first article for the Master Naturalists in the Cameron newspaper last week. They didn’t put in any photos, which doesn’t surprise me, and it was on the back page, but it WAS the article. I think I’m supposed to write another one soon. With all this new puppy stuff, writing is not as easy as I’d like.

And I am sorry about how HUGE this is. There are so many names in the article that it’s hard to read (I was supposed to mention EVERY person who was there. Yow.)

newspaper_article_418 — Yeah, I’m sure you’re real impressed.

Mother Earth

EarthDay3_tree — These were prizes given out to Earth Day attendees who visited at least four of the booths.

When I was in one of those women’s groups that were popular when my kids were little, we often chanted. This one kept going through my mind yesterday:

The earth is our mother
We must take care of her
The earth is our mother
We must take care
of
her

Chants don’t tend to go too deep into details. But that one got me thinking about how much my own care for the planet has changed and expanded since we bought our rural property.

The opportunity to observe the changing of the seasons as more than just flowers blooming and leaves changing color has meant a lot. I know what birds show up, and when. I know when it’s going to rain and when it’s likely to be dry. I know that in different years, different insects are more prevalent than in others. Just sitting on the porch is like watching a nature documentary!

Celebrating Earth Day

EarthDay_art — Nature art and beautyberry brownies, courtesy of Sean Wall.

Unlike many other years, I did more than just pick some flowers or plant something on Earth Day this year. The El Camino Master Naturalists had worked very hard to create an extensive exhibit on a variety of relevant topics, so I joined them to take photos and work on a newspaper article to document the event.

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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.”

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Foraging Fun

It’s Friday the 13th, but I’m not worried! The first thing I saw when I stepped out of my house this morning was a pair of bluebirds, which did indeed bring happiness. Way to go, nature!

I got to our business office in Cameron to receive another surprise, the amaryllis bulbs Mrs. Trubee had planted were all blooming. The big ole wind that’s been blowing since last night had broken one, so it’s sitting on my desk as I type.

But, what about foraging?

Last night was the April Master Naturalist chapter meeting, and the speaker was a really interesting young man named Sean Wall, who has self-published a book on foraging for food in Texas. He’d already sold all the books he’d brought by the time I talked to him, but I’ll be picking up a copy on April 21 at the Rockdale Earth Day event.*

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