Category: FRIENDS

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04/06/2023 morning wander at Black Mesa State Park

We are now at Black Mesa State Park. Mom and briar look for a bird!
We went to the start of the Petrified Forest trail. We will explore more in a few days.
Here’s a petrified log! Briar also smelled it.
I love all the grama grass here!
This big flat rock had an unexplained old bolt and washer in it.
Here’s the lichen on the same big flat rock!
There’s a Say’s Phoebe in here. we also saw a bunch of American Goldfinches and House Finches. There was a Canyon Towhee by the park office! We have also been hearing flickers and robins.
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04/04/2023 day two of Boiling Springs State Park

The world’s most cooperative Falcate Orangetip butterfly! Feeding at a dandelion here and we also saw it on henbit and speedwell.
The tree with some green is an elm and the pod tree is a catalpa!
This grass was everywhere. Mom says not coastal Bermuda, but otherwise we’re not sure.
The River Trail was full of old and fallen and standing cottonwood trees. I liked the pattern on this barkless log.
Dad spotted this well-camouflaged Buprestidae beetle! I used my macro Moment lens on the phone camera to admire its nice punctate (the dimples) elytra (the hard wing covers).
There were also quite a few Kentucky Coffee Trees with their distinctive seed pods. Mom hadn’t seen them before so we looked it up and they’re not in Texas much.
Briar dog for scale on a bridge over the small springfed creek with a big, big cottonwood tree in the background.
I liked this tree’s bark!
The Civilian Conservation Core pump house near the spring’s source. Briar hopes it has air conditioning???
We didn’t go in the pump house but continued in the visitor center area (everything here was paved and accessible) to see the very channeled spring creek.
Briar did find the cool flagstones in the shade to be acceptable. the “boiling” sand is in the fenced area. Mom will be blogging it eventually so look at her site for video coming in the next week or so!
Mom spotted our second ever Olympia Marble butterfly! It was fast and flighty. It was mostly feeding on henbit flowers in the lawn area behind the visitor center.
On our walk back we saw this beaver-gnawed tree. The park office person told us the beaver had recently moved and she didn’t know where to, so we showed her yesterday’s beaver den and she agreed that was probably it! We have been listening to a great book about beavers lately called “Eager” by Ben Goldfarb. I recommend it so far!
Briar looks out over more CCC work- the stone edged bridge.
Now this afternoon and evening we’re hunkered down in a big dust storm! Glad we walked this morning and early afternoon when the sky was still blue.
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03/26/2023 field trip to Lexington WMA

Cruising around! We heard an upland chorus frog sing from a pond as we drove by. It sounds like a finger running over teeth of a comb!
I need to add captions and descriptions to the rest of the pics, but this Spiranthes sp was neat to see coming up!
Briar and Paula in safety hunter orange.
False garlic with tiny moths.
Paula caught a Little Brown Skink!
The skink did not want to stay for a visit.
A prairie verbena!
Armadillo!!! Briar ready, but actual briar vines kept her from following it far.
First Lomatium of the day. Briar helped by putting her nose by it.
Arnoglossum sp! Leaves
Bigger Arnoglossum species leaves!
The lovely valley we walked around. Had some damp spots.
Milkweed! Probably Asclepias verticillata??
Echinacea probably angustifolia? Leaf and last year’s seed head.
Thanks for laying down in the mud puddle, BRIAR.
Nostoc algae and scale lichens!
Paula found this great potter wasp nest!
Eventually found a big patch of Lomatium blooming.
Some Lomatium in light shade.
Some Lomatium almost done blooming.
Some Lomatium out in the sun.
Another prairie verbena.
A puccoon just opening!
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03/22/2023 nighttime-only cat! babies!!! And dinner!

Briar helpfully alerted me to a potential friend carefully crossing the back fence today! What a magnificent neighbor.
Turns out a few peach flowers survived.
The ones with dropped petals are quite striking with pale tips over maroon backgrounds!
I believe this is the annual (?) Cardamine sp from nearby seeded into the prickly pear planter.
Abby has kindly identified this as a human-introduced species Armeria serpyllifolia, thyme-leaved sandwort. It isn’t from North American originally but doesn’t seem to dramatically disturb the landscape.
This one may be an introduced chickweed. But a fuzzy one, not Stellaria media.
More baby inland sea oat seedlings in a second pot!my
Multiple baby native Rosa sp from Fannin Co TX. Thanks Mom!
This seems big enough to be the persimmon I actually planted??
Seedlings in false gaura pot, but not sure they look right.
Oklahoma penstemon given to me by a kind fellow Norman citizen!
Maybe smartweed amongst the Chenopodium. We shall see.
A Datura maybe?? The label fell out of this pot. Anybody recognize this seed?
I am informed the mustard leaf garnish is from garden and that the soup contains poblanos from last year from the freezer.
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12/31/2022 turning compost, turning new year

It was a beautiful day yesterday so Paula wanted to turn the compost! I fetched our pitchfork which is from Mom and Dad. The Chef created a new handle and stick for it.
The back, older pile may be ready by spring! Weirdly it was drier, though. We set up some hoses to direct water from the closest rain barrels to both piles now, since it’s not good to leave water in the barrels when it might freeze.
A very fast rollypolley!
Paula adeptly captured this woodroach. It’s a North American native genus! For those worried about roaches in the house, I’ve never seen one in the house. This is an outside only friend, doing its ecological role of nutrient cycling by munching on detritus (here, in the compost- just what we need for veggie waste to be turned into good rich soil!). It’s the invasive and introduced-by-European-settlers (presumably accidentally) roaches that are human-associated, such as the German Cockroach.
The tragic face of a dog not allowed in the compost area. She likes to eat eggshells. There’s also a great stash of feral cat poop down behind the house in the leaves. For Briar’s sake, please keep your cats indoors. She might be allowed a chance at the eggshells if there wasn’t cat poop!!
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12/23/2022 feeding our friends

Briar was very interested in the three squirrels.
Shackleton liked the sun, the squirrels, and the chickadees and juncos! Good stuff! I was pleased to see the juncos eating chenopodium seeds and wild sunflower seeds off the dead plants as well as the supplemental bird seeds we put out today for the cold weather. It got up to 19 F.
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12/22/2022 definitely no birds only leaves

I put out bird seed since it’s so cold and a flock of a dozen or so juncos visited. They never came when we first moved here- they needed the cover of the wood pile and later the brush pile.
I put the seeds on the stepping stones and by the brush pile especially to make it easier and safer.
Shackleton might have noticed the birds. The birds say any and all movement was leaves! Definitely no birds!! Fortunately for them, this polar explorer is indoors only except on a leash. Much safer for birds and warmer for Shacks.
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12/14/2022 winter plantings

I ordered plants from a new to me nursery, Missouri Wildflowers Nursery.
Hmm box with ok smells?
Gram came running to see if he could have the box.
“Hello little brother “
The packing by this nursery was quite clever! Shredded paper mostly over the rosettes or dormant pots.
They also kindly marked the plants that were dormant. A few other species had low winter leaves (spiderwort) or rosettes (asters, pussytoes).
Even the dormant plants had happy roots!
The soil held together with roots but weren’t aggressively bound in.
Paula found a small cicada larva under the oak tree while planting!
We also uncovered an ancient Nylabone from Briar’s youth. She was unimpressed.
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10/08/2022 Ruby Grant park

Caterpillar on broom weed
A grasshopper with very worn wings on Grindelia.
A tree cricket on Grindelia!
A megachilid bee on Grindelia.
Fall is starting! Sumacs in particular are turning red.
A noctuid moth on Maximilian sunflowers.
A bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) nearby on the same sunflower plant.
So many Maximilian sunflowers!
Briar poses in front of the prairie filled with more sunflowers.
A purple aster!
On the first Liatris we saw, Paula found these purple caterpillars.
Mom mentioned Schinia sanguinea at home recently and we think that’s what these are. She saw the adult first then later the caterpillars. Two other Schinia sp can apparently also eat Liatris according to this website (and of course they don’t provide a citation). However the owlet moth caterpillar book, which Mom has, doesn’t mention this.
A sleepy Dainty Sulphur. It was a cloudy and cool day afternoon before sunset.
A parasitic wasp resting on snow-on-the-mountain.
Another interesting moth on Maximilian sunflowers.
Green grasshoppers were distracted so I got a close up of their textured greens!
The prairie is full of messages. Briar sniffs sunflowers as we walk by.
A long-horned bee rests on a Grindelia. There were so many Grindelia at all stages.
A very fuzzy Croton species.