Tag: laughing

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.

Buescher Lake is lovely.

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.

Some of the trees are huge.

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

The road to the fishing area
Drummond’s aster
Some other fall aster
Pink smartweed, I think
It was beautiful.
Lots of it
Bladderpod!
Damselfly
One sedge
Another sedge
Gomphrena weed
Heliotrope
More heliotrope
Flowers and insects

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.

Me and Mike, in our happy places.

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.

Fun with rocks.

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.

It was a little spooky.

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.

Deer!
My friends the feathershanks
Woods road
Another big tree
Mossy rocks
Weird fly
Woodpecker home fell down
More lake
There’s a house wren in this picture.
Asters.
Cool vines on trees
Non native nandina
Pretty wood oats
Deer tracks
Canine tracks. Also saw duck footprints.
Fine new dam
More moss
Skipper
I think it’s a Phoebe
Silver bluestem
Pecans and rec hall
Formerly the largest cedar elm in Texas
Road to Bastrop
Tree canopy
Baby pines
More fire damage
Cedar sage
The same view as the star photo above

Reptile Season

I’ve mentioned the snake that was in the henhouse last week and the snapping turtle that visited. The reptiles and their ilk have not stopped coming, though.

This morning my son was mowing the back yard when I went out to feed the horses. He said to go get my camera, because he’d just seen a different kind of snake.

A different kind of snake

He was right. That wasn’t another rat snake, it was a thick ole water snake. Like everything else, it seemed to be moving from one body of water to another.

Nerodia erythrogaster – plain bellied water snake

The bad thing was that it went over to the swimming pool equipment, where there is already a garden hose that looks just like a water snake. Now we are very careful over there.

I’m not a snake

Only an hour or later I went to put something in the tack room and spotted a movement that looked familiar. Nope, not a snapping turtle, but one of the native cooters. It didn’t stick its head out enough to ID it, and it’s shell was covered in algae. A fine little specimen.

The algae is a good disguise

These guys are breeding right now. I know for sure, because my friend Jeremy, who does all his ranching at night, saw one laying eggs and burying them last night! I’ve never seen that, since I do NOT ride a tractor at night.

I’d like to be going now.

We are still getting rat snake visitors, too. There was one in the henhouse last evening, another full-grown one, who had already gotten an egg. I got the other ones out, and just left the snake, since I was on my way to a Master Naturalist party for our graduating class. I did post it on Facebook.

It had already crushed the egg by this time, so it’s not as lumpy as it was earlier

Apparently my photo startled the aforementioned Jeremy when he saw it. Then only a little while later, he nearly stumbled across one doing his yard work! It looked exactly the same, which gave him another start! Like me, he’s a snake fan, but they still can startle you! I love having interesting friends who share stories.

Speaking of startling, the colors in this selfie startled me! It even made my hair look good.

By the way, I had a blast at the party last night, which was held in one of Milam County’s numerous Mexican restaurants. This was in Rockdale. The folks I sat with were so much fun and told great stories about the area and it’s history. I’m sure everyone noticed how much we were laughing.

Of course, we talked about reptiles, too. I heard that last year, Gene Rek, the guy who sells us our chickens, had over twenty rat snakes in his turkey pens. Yow. That’s more reptile visitors than even I would want.

My friends Gene and Carolyn goofing off.

We all realized it had been a long time since we’d had the chance to just relax over a meal and get to know interesting people better. It felt good to laugh and share.