Category: Supervisors

Posted on

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.
Posted on

04/05/2023 departure

We managed a short walk for dog business before Briar freaked out about wanting to get in truck. On that walk we saw this nice crustose lichen with orange apothecia (the round speckles) on a walnut tree.
Briar safe in the truck and you can’t take her out!!!
Posted on

04/04/2023 evening dust and grass

That’s all dust in the sky!
Satellite view on the Windy app definitely shows us in the tan dust area! Boiling Springs is very near Woodward.
On our evening walk along the camp area (almost completely empty) Mom spotted a colony of chimney bees! Zoom in to see the holes in the soil.
A mystery grass.
Lots of beautiful big bluestem here along with little bluestem!
Big bluestem with the dusty sun behind it.
Grama grass with the dusty sun!
Resting on warm concrete after a dusty day. Shackleton would be jealous of Briar.
Posted on

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.
Posted on

04/03/2023 extended field trip

The painted brown entrance sign at Boiling Springs State Park.
Briar thinks camping might be okay.
A lovely prairie near the Spring Hill trail.
Some beautiful grama grass curled empty seedheads with a background of little bluestem.
Yuccas under a soapberry tree.
Posted on

03/31/2023 thanks past self!

Past me ordered plants in the winter!
Pets very much liked the box. It had good smells. Here Gram steps right in before I’ve unpacked the crinkle paper.
Good thing there was cardboard protecting the plants too.
Gram moved to sit on the crinkle paper and smells one of two Blackfoot daisies. Briar observes. We put the daisies in the rock garden. I had one in the backyard once when we first moved here but I think it was too wet. The rock garden is the driest hottest spot in the yard.
The other plant we got was an orange Agastache. The damn invasive human-introduced earwig horde has already started eating it, so we are trying petroleum jelly around the base. It has worked for tomatoes before but didn’t work on a different Agastache recently, so we’ll go back out before bed and check again.
Posted on

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!
Posted on

01/24/2023 unauthorized entry

I was putting some books on my desk shelf this evening when in my peripheral vision I noticed more purple plant growing light visible than should be. I keep a towel over it to protect our eyes.
I examined the gap in the cover more closely and realized Shackleton was curled up contentedly on the heating pad, which is set to a cozy 85 degrees F. There’s even a bit of dust (spilled potting soil).
Shackleton napping peacefully with the last unsprouted pepper pot, bathed in a purple glow.
Busted, buddy. The nice thing about this tray is that I can slide it out to check on seedlings AND clever cats.
He did a big back arching stretch of casual innocence.
Shackleton emerges from his vacation tray, complete with unnecessary UV exposure. 🙄
Paula moved Shacks back to his actual cat heating pad on the couch. I put a bunch of empty pots in the tray with the one seedling pot and put more up in front of the towel-curtain, as well as a series of inconvenient containers. Hopefully this will persuade Shacks to stick to his heated bed or at least clogging up our amplifier with his hair.
Posted on

01/16/2023 creating a special caliche/barrens habitat in containers

Visited home last weekend and Mom and Dad kindly let us take home some calcareous soil from an already disturbed area – the “lake”.
I had planned to shovel the soil but they kindly offered the much easier method of front-end loader. 🙂 We did scrape in a few small little bluestems and other plants that I have kept!
Since the soil was heavy, I carefully moved it into a bucket I could lift, and also searched for those little plants I mentioned got scraped in.
Paula and I put careful layers of soil and water to get it compact in the planters by the front door.
Paula smoothed them nicely and added water.
You can see the plants I found in the background, sitting on the porch. This is the final picture with a dusting of cactus/succulent/citrus potting soil on top.
Shackleton helped me sort the calcareous soil/barrens specialist seeds that Mom gave me.
Here are all the seeds in place with little markers! I also put one each little bluestem in the pot, a possible Oldplainsman in each, and a mystery round-leafed green plant. We’ll see what they become!
I did the two planters symmetrical but mirror images since they are on either side of the porch. Fingers crossed we get some sprouts in the spring!