Plant Sightings – Page 26 – The Hermits' Rest

Magical Forest and Firelight

Today’s camping adventure was that Mike and I ditched our spouses (with permission) to hike on one of the longer trails in Buescher State Park. This was the Pine Gulch Trail that goes for five miles. However, we took the Roosevelt cut-off, which made it just three miles. Since there was a lot of climbing up and down, that was plenty for us.

We had to drive to the trailhead, which was fine with me since it meant I could go down the beautiful park road again. We stopped at the official scenic overlook to enjoy the view of farms and the main highway to Houston below.

As we were about to leave, two fancy BMW motorcycles pulled up, and off came two delightful Polish men from Houston who were committed to getting off the road and looking at the scenery. Apparently the guy who usually leads their rides doesn’t like to stop. After they assured us they were real people and not AI (well they did look sorta funny in their fancy motorcycle outfits), we had a nice conversation, then took pictures of ourselves. They wanted to prove to their wives that they really went on a drive, not to a bar or something.

I love all the new people you meet camping! I also love all the new plants and flowers. The trail alternated between deep woods and pretty meadows that were made by fires. Even though it’s late in the year, it was quite colorful, with lots of bitterweed and palafox, with dayflower and poverty weed thrown in.

The woods smell so piney and woody. I kept stopping to breathe as well as take pictures of the beauty.

Of course, I found tiny flowers to marvel at, though I did manage to walk without stopping long enough to make my watch think I was hiking. Check out these beauties.

After we came home, I chatted with Lee and a guy he met, then waited until time for my football game, which we heroically figured out how to watch by logging in to our Direct TV account. We even used the outdoor television for the first time. I’d forgotten we had one.

The lure of another fire was greater than football, though, so the four of us left over from the church campout sat around it and told stories and gazed. I like the gazing.

It’s just so pleasant to ramble on and on together.

Lee took a couple of fun photos of me in firelight. One looks like I’m casting a spell.

In this one I’m warming my hands, but it looks to me like the spell I cast removed my legs.

Well, the time change and all that exercise have me pretty woozy, so that’s it for today.

Eye Witness to the Circle of Life

Today was a great camping day here at Buescher State Park. I’d like to start the highlights with some coolness that happened right at my campsite.

This is a Gulf fritillary butterfly in the straggler daisies behind our motorhome. I was knitting and enjoying the afternoon as various butterflies flitted by. This one seemed to have an agenda.

It flew over to a vine just beyond the edge of the woods. The butterfly spent a lot of time going from leaf to leaf. I actually hadn’t noticed the vine before, but looking at it I realized it resembled a passion vine. I hadn’t seen any here yet, and there it was, right in front of me.

As I was taking the photo above I noticed something. There were two caterpillars on the vine. I took pictures of them, too. Then I went to look up the plant and the insect.

Well. The plant was a yellow passionflower (Passiflora lutea). The caterpillars were Gulf fritillary babies. The butterfly had been laying eggs. Right there, the whole circle of life! Now I know the host flower for these guys.

As for the rest of the day, it started with chatting by the breakfasts of various fellow camping friends. Then I sort of led an interpretive hike down a wooded trail with seven other people. It was fun teaching the two kids some stuff as well as learning from all the campers.

We found some pretty flowers among the trees, including exuberant liatris, pink ruellia, and these darling tiny blue curls.

I enjoyed walking with folks who were as excited about little flowers as me, and a couple of the fellow campers were great observers. We even geeked out over fungi and molds.

It was a great time, but we ended up tired!

I did my nails a dark yet sparkly celestial color for the end of my beloved Daylight Savings Time, then hung out with various friends in the afternoon. It’s so good talking to people who know and accept you.

I made egg salad for the traditional Live Oak potluck meal. The eggs weren’t cooperative so it took a while, but it ended up tasty. Especially with homemade salsa on it.

For a small group we ended up with a perfect variety of foods. We just fit in the tent pad on one of our campsites. It was great to all be able to talk to each other. There was only one couple I hadn’t met yet, who were lots of fun and very interesting. What a good time.

The gang, minus Joanna and Tom, cause she has to preach tomorrow.

On our way back to our site, Lee and I tried to take star pictures. Mine are only okay because I moved and messed up Jupiter. We also tried to get some of the lake.

What a great day!

Another Day, Another Bunch of Plants…Plus Friends!

Today at woodsy ole Buescher State Park was as good as it gets (other than having to grocery shop). I got a bunch of work done, enjoyed my meetings, and was able to take a long walk in the morning. My coworkers loved seeing this in their Zoom meeting.

I was able to find a bit of plant diversity by sticking to the edges of the lake, the dam, and fields. The woods are gorgeous but have mostly the same plants.

Around the lake there were lots of interesting plants and unusual (to me) flowers. There were so many fun shapes and growing habits.

I’m too tired to identify things. Sorry. Why am I tired? It’s a good kind of tired. I got to spend the late afternoon and evening with old friends. First, I got to hang out with my Cameron friends Mike and Martha at their big campsite. It has logs to sit on, so we sat on logs for a good long time.

Martha made a little altar out of chert rocks, sticks, and such. I added red rocks because they are so pretty. This was the compromise, because you’re not supposed to take things home from these parks.

After dinner, Mike and Lee tended a fire at our campsite, and slowly but surely other folks from our group wandered in. We had lots of laughs and told many good stories.

We were trying not to be too loud and not bother the folks who pulled in after dark and were setting up at the site next to us. Then, when they called my name, we realized it was more of us, the church minister and her husband. So we were fine. I was impressed they set up a new tent in the dark. We all had such relaxed fun. I know a lot of good story tellers! My cheeks hurt from laughing again!

Stars through the trees. Big and bright.

There are still a couple more families to catch up with, but I think this will be a nice sized group of current and former Live Oak UU members.

We will have more fires! No more drought!

Here are some other sights from today, including a drive on the scenic road to Bastrop State Park where we went through areas where pines are recovering from the 2011 fire. I hope you enjoy all the trees.

Rolling Off to Bastrop County Again

The weather should be glorious for the next few days, so we’ve decided to spend longer than usual out in the motorhome. That’s made possible by the fact that we also brought my car so Lee can attend a meeting back home and we both can explore this area a bit.

We barely fit both vehicles in, but we did it!

This shady woodland is in Buescher State Park, which is a weirdly shaped area full of trails and scenery. It connects to Bastrop State Park vía a scenic road that I hope to go down tomorrow.

I had fun because I arrived first and got to be the only person in the camping area for a while. It let me really hear the pileated woodpecker singing and pecking away. They are quite noisy birds!

I did a preliminary survey of the plants around the campground. Lots of yaupon and oak, but there are some famous Bastrop County pine trees and others. Not much is blooming after the light frost we had, but I was delighted to find a couple of interesting plants.

This shiny vine is lanceleaf greenbrier, which I’ve looked for often. (*Smilax smallii*)

After my walk, I helped my friend Jen get her trailer unhooked, because her site was too short to fit her camper and her car in without unhooking. We got it done in a fit of woman power and grit. When Lee arrived, I hooked the water up with no dripping, so I’m feeling like a mighty camper.

But I’m not sure if I should go in the restroom. Am I both a woman AND a lady?

Jen and I had nice times chatting and trying to plan a potluck location (none of the cute cabins were available). Then Lee and I spent time with my other favorite co-camper, Mike, with whom I intend to do some good hiking. I earned a lot about AI from him as a bonus.

I’ll enjoy working tomorrow with a view of trees (and no barking dogs to interrupt my recording of myself talking), then get in some exploring. in the meantime, back to knitting by the fake fireplace.

It’s the Most Water-full Time of the Year

Yessir. These days we tend to have a few months of drought, a couple of dribbles, then WHOOSH! A big ole flood comes along. Today was Flood Day. We got four inches or more, three of them very fast.

Even the backup culvert was called into use.

It was about time that our poor ponds (tanks in Texan) got refilled, because the drizzles we’ve had earlier in the month didn’t stop them from continuing to dry up.

Still, it is probably too much to ask of Mother Nature, but a few days of an inch or two a day would be a lot better for our plants and trees, because this much water just runs off into the creek, into the Little Elm, then into the Little River, then into the Brazos, and on to the sea. Or something like that.

For a while there around noon today it looked like we were in a lake, because it was raining so hard nothing could absorb. It was fun to watch, as it was fun to see the creek slowly fill up as more rain went into Walker’s Creek up north from here.

You normally can’t see water from our back yard.

After the rain, I had a lot of fun in my rubber boots looking at the aftermath. Drew was enjoying the water running in from the arroyo and across the road. I hope there wasn’t too much fertilizer runoff, because now it’s all in our front pond.

Mabel, on the other hand, changed colors from rolling in the mud. That gal likes her dirt.

The minute the sun came out, out came all the birds, butterflies, and bugs. The birds had a feast, I’m sure. And I finally got a picture of one of the beautiful blue butterflies with its wings open! That was a personal goal.

You can see how high the water got during the hard rain

I also made all my work goals, even publishing my training video successfully after it breaking repeatedly. For the first time ever, I found the answer in one of those ancient user forums on the software’s site. Turns out you can’t have any of that fancy chart stuff from PowerPoint in your presentation for it to work with my add-on software. I converted the charts to images and everything was fine. I tell you what, it makes me feel smart.

More rain is in store for a few days. There goes my plan to ride my horses every single day. Ya can’t have everything.

Congratulations! It’s a Pipit!

I’ve been trying to ID a brown bird I see every autumn for years now. It’s got white on the sides of its tail and is found in our pastures. Why has it been so hard?

There are LOTS of those tricky little brown birds here in the middle of Texas in the post oak savanna. In addition to the easily spotted house sparrows, there are savannah sparrows, vesper sparrows, lark sparrows, swamp sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, Harris’s sparrows, and maybe more. Some are easy, some are hard to ID visually.

This is the bird. A bit lanky for a sparrow.

That’s why I must once again praise Merlin Bird ID. It’s helped me figure out what I’m seeing SO much. And yesterday and today I was able to figure out what that mysterious brown bird of autumn is, and it’s not a sparrow.

It’s also not a meadowlark, which also has white along it’s tail feathers and a brown back. It does have a beautiful song, like the meadowlark, though.

Meadowlarks are this color in the front, though.

It’s an American pipit. Or it’s a Sprague’s pipit. They aren’t even related to sparrows, which is obvious if you look at their bills. They have the sharp bill of an insectivore. I know that because Merlin heard them calling.

I then read the description and had a “doh” moment. That’s exactly what I’ve been looking at in the fields.

With my love of identification and categorization of what’s around me, I’m quite satisfied right now. Pipit. Yeah. Turns out they’re not even uncommon. Huh.

This snail seed vine isn’t uncommon either, but it’s pretty.

It’s a good bird time right now and will only get better. I’m sad to see summer birds go, but meadowlarks and all those sparrows fill the air with song. Plus the phoebes are screeching and the shrikes are shrieking. The kingfisher is back, too!

It’s a great time of year. Flowers glow in late afternoon light.

And hey, only one bur today on Apache’s man bun and zero on Drew. I want to credit my braiding, but I think the new hay has kept them out of bur world.

Tiny crow poison looks like stars in the grass.

I Took a Break

Yes, I took a break from many things I do constantly, and it felt good! I skipped two days of blogging and knitting, and I am just fine, thank you.

I don’t particularly look fine with one dark lens and one light one!

While it wasn’t a voluntary break, it was blissful to have a lot of time to meditate, listen, and rest for the past few days. You see, I took a blogging break starting last Friday because the place we’ve been all weekend is like most Texas State Parks, and light on cellular connectivity. Once I fired up my hotspot, I was able to do things like upload images to iNaturalist slowly and post a few photos to Facebook.

The knitting issue was my own dang fault. I had forgotten to bring along the two shades of blue I needed for the cold front last week. Indeed, it got cool enough to require blue yarn. So, I had to stop. That’s not the end of the world, since I was almost caught up to the present in my squares. Blah blah blah, knitting talk.

Anyway, Lockhart State Park is a little jewel of a place built by the CCC and WPA, two government programs that provided employment in the Great Depression. Today it would be labeled handouts and frowned upon, no doubt.

There are only 20 camping sites, but the circle we are on has 50 amp electric and sewer hookup, so it’s snazzy. Our view is of a woods and the second hole of the only golf course remaining in a Texas State Park. I doubt they have to mow it very often, judging from the sizable herd of deer that shows up every night.

You may recall that our television antenna was knocked off poor Seneca’s roof. We have a new one but haven’t managed to get it up there, so this was also a television-free weekend, other than watching The World Is Not Enough with Pierce Brosnan last night on BlueRay.

Who needs TV? Plus we got the bedroom slide out! Yay!

So, what have I done? Mostly I walked. I have gone on all but one hiking trail here, madly taking photos of plants, bugs, and such for the 2023 Pollinator BioBlitz. I knew I’d do well on this one, because I had one free weekend at home to record observations, most of a week in South Texas, then this long weekend in Lockhart. At one point this weekend, I was #3 out of over 5,000 people in numbers of observations (this will change as people who use real cameras upload their photos, I’m sure).

There were a few plants that I really enjoyed seeing. New to me was the Texas Feathershank Schoenocaulon texanum. It a beautiful plant, especially when the sun shines through its blossoms. I wish it grew at our place!

Two other wonders are the Texas Kidneywood Eysenhardtia texana and the Bearded Swallow-wort Metastelma barbigerum, two plants with tiny white flowers that I learned more about on this trip. Lockhart is at the northern end of the area these are found in.

Kidneywood is used for dye, as it apparently glows underwater! It also has blossoms that smell intoxicatingly wonderful and are very attractive to pollinators. With its teeny little leaves, it’s a cool small tree to find.

The swallow-wort I saw in south Texas. Here, though, there were huge vines of them, just abuzz with bees and wasps. I think it may be related to milkvines, because the leaves look similar and the seed pods look just like climbing milkvine. Plus, look at those seeds. Sure looks like milkweed! The flowers are teeny-tiny, though, so if they have a cute little pearl in the center, I couldn’t see them.

I did finally find a blooming milkvine, after spotting many with no blossoms. I do love milkweeds.

The most common plants here are the ubiquitous straggler daisy, Texas Indian mallow, and Turk’s cap. There were some lovely vistas of Turk’s cap in the woods, even though you could tell a lot were lost in the drought.

Here are some other plants and insects I found:

My side quest was to see how many birds I could identify. I actually saw quite a few, with the most obliging one being this lovely black vulture, who just grunted at me a couple of times.

Mostly I heard birds on Merlin. There were a couple of obvious errors, but most I could confirm by seeing them. There was even a screech owl! In all, I identified 42 kinds of birds, thanks to the varied terrain here (water birds really like the lovely creek that flows through the park).

I also saw lots of deer in the woods, as well as on the golf course, and one happy armadillo. There was evidence of MANY armadillos here, along with coyotes and raccoons.

The most fun I had (fun is a weird thing for me) was going into the trails at sunset and finding a quiet spot. Then I’d just listen. Sadly, you could always hear traffic way in the background, along with airplanes and a really annoying bulldozer that messed up my listening this morning. But when it was quiet, you could hear the leaves falling off the cedar elm trees, cardinals flying (they are loud fliers), distant crows, and what I figure are deer walking around or armadillos digging.

Of course, in the mornings, it isn’t silent. The wrens, chickadees, blue jays, cardinals, and woodpeckers make quite a racket. And one hawk about burst my eardrums it was so close. Pretty cool.

Back to work, dogs, and horses tomorrow morning! I think I have enough Internet to get work done while Lee gets ready to leave! But we both will remember this quiet, restful respite.

I’m Punting Again (and a salt lake)

What have you been putting off doing? Why?

Ha ha, I thought to myself when I saw this prompt. It’s perfect! I’ve been putting off sharing some cool stuff I learned and saw at the Master Naturalist Annual Meeting. And I have to put things off again after taking 12 hours to get home today. I’m zonked.

Don’t get me wrong! It was because I was having a wonderful time that we took so long! Oh, yes, my smile muscles were hurting.

Because nature is beautiful, says the Couch’s kingbird.

We skipped the end of the conference to go to one of the places I’d learned about in one of my sessions, La Sal Del Rey (the king’s salt). It’s near Edinburgh or San Manuel Linn, Texas.

It’s really an amazing sight, so please visit the link above to read more. We saw animal tracks galore around the lake, and dozens of new birds and mating dragonflies around the nearby freshwater lagoons. Paradise.

My first javelina or ringed peccary. These are native. He was not bothered by us.

Everything sparkles in the sun there from the salt crystals. Awe inspiring. Because of deep exhaustion I’m not going to show you and name all the plants and other wildlife. Here are a few plants and birds, along with scenery of the lake, thorn scrub, and mesquite/prickly pear forest.

Blurry, but my first vermillion flycatcher

I’m so glad I got to finally see South Texas. It’s so different and interesting!

More details later.

Learning, Ahh (Master Naturalist Meeting Part 2

I’m too tired to write much. It was the only full day of sessions for this year’s conference. I really like how the convention center in McAllen is laid out. It’s easy to find things. And it’s very pretty.

Weeds in the vacant lot across the street were also pretty. This is Alamo vine.

All my sessions were good, though I must say the one on flies was my favorite. Wow that lady liked flies. I learned so much!

I escaped to an empty lot for a while and managed to find some new plants, plus finally found the climbing milk vine that’s everywhere in bloom. It’s seed pods are also pretty.

Climbing milkweed (Funastrum cynanchoides)

I took a bunch more pictures of the tributes to Frida Kahlo that are in the hallways. They are fascinating. These got cropped, so click to see the whole images.

I’ve enjoyed hanging out with my friends and our Texas Parks and Wildlife friends, Sam and Mike. Great conversations! I even get to speak Spanish a lot!

Tomorrow will be extra fun. Eclipse day!

Master Naturalist 2023 Part 1

Ooh. Today was fun. It started out with a trip to the National Butterfly Center, which is beautiful and exciting. There were wonderful plantings of plants that attract pollinators as well as lots of unmanicured areas teeming with birds. I got LOTS of new birds on my life list! I really enjoyed the greater kiskadees.

The woods were very different and had all kinds of new trees and bushes for me to explore. I definitely fell in love with the woods, the wetlands, and the river.

I had only seen the Rio Grande in El Paso, where it’s not pretty. Here, it’s wide and lush and gives you an idea of what this part of south Texas used to be like.

Unfortunately you can’t forget what South Texas is like now. We came upon the news in action: progress on the border wall. It really hit all of us hard. Nature can’t pass through, either. Luckily the Center property will not have a wall through it.

Oh yeah. There were butterflies. And bees.

Ok, after many photos and much listening to new birds (green Jay, two kinds of kingfisher, golden-fronted woodpecker, Wilson’s warbler), we headed to lunch, after which the conference started.

Beautiful ofrenda in the conference center

All four sessions I attended were interesting. I learned about the geology of this region, burrowing owls, reforestation down here, and changing coastal marshes due to climate change. Quite a variety.

The dinner was nothing to write home about, but we had good conversations and had fun waiting for the hotel shuttle and enjoying the día de los muertos decorations.

When we got to the hotel there were more reminders of how weird things are in south Texas. We wondered why the cleaning staff was cleaning at night. Then a young man came out of the door to his room. He told us they clean the rooms for him and his colleagues at night because they sleep during the day. We looked at his Army fatigues and he said, “you can guess why I’m here.” He’s been on this job a year. Wow. Very nice guy, as were the others we met in the lobby.

I’m learning a lot.