Swallow-tailed kites above our pond two weeks ago. Hello blog reading friends! I just wanted to pop in and say that yes, I am still alive but to state the obvious: blogging here has fallen off a cliff. It s been an issue for several years now and I ve tried to reinvent something here a couple of times but have failed to make it stick. I m less inclined to write as openly as I used to, though I…
I m not sure there is anything a book lover enjoys more than free books and certainly a bag of books for 50 cents is a close second! My friends and I made a few shopping stops in Mexia during our trip to Fort Parker last month and one of them was to the Caritas thrift shop in Mexia. The retail shop is open for limited hours throughout the week and we managed to show up at the right time. Like many…
Jack s Creek, which feeds into the Navasota River around the bend to the left of the photo. Virginia Springbeauty, Claytonia virginica A very chilly plain-bellied Watersnake, Nerodia erythrogaster. The Navasota River Hemisphaeric Liverwort, Reboulia hemisphaerica, with both male and female reproductive parts visible. I don t usually see this species like this, usually it is in its non-reproductive…
An interesting limestone creek wall with black maidenhair ferns, Adiantum capillus-veneris. Sound on for lovely creek sounds. Golden-eye Lichen, Teloschistes chrysophthalmus with a sunburst lichen, Xanthomendoza weberi. Winter Grapefern, Holubiella lunarioides White Avens, Geum canadense Common Script Lichen, Graphis scripta, with an unidentified liverwort. Orthotrichum pusillum moss with a…
One of the two 110 film cameras I have (the Diana Baby being the other one) is a Concord 110 EF, much like the Neon Lites one in this link. It s the first camera I had as a kid and was a Christmas present from my grandmother, I believe. Someday I will flip through my photo albums to see what kind of photos I took with it back in the day, though I have an inkling of what some of them look like…
All photos above were shot on a Minolta XG-1 on expired Kodak Gold 200 35mm film. All photos above were shot on a Minolta XG-1 on expired Kodak GC 400-8 35mm film. To continue from my last post, here are photos from other rolls of film I recently had developed. These two are from expired 35mm film and I really love the outcome for both. It s giving looks like 1975 but in reality it was 2024. The…
I recently had some film developed that I d had sitting around for the last year and a half. I had forgotten I had shot an entire roll of 110 film on my Diana Baby toy camera when we were in the Galapagos in July 2024 so these were a fun treat to see when I scanned the negatives. The film was Color Tiger 110 ISO 200 from Lomography. Getting the film developed has renewed my interest to shoot more…
Ozark Milkvetch, Astragalus distortus Aquatic Pygmyweed, Crassula aquatica Rose Bluet, Houstonia rosea After more than a decade of wanting to see Texas prairie dawn (Hymenoxys texana), Chris and I were finally able to see a population of the plants in western Harris County last spring. They ve been on our survey lists for years when we work in certain areas of the state, primarily the Houston…
Hi blog readers, if you are still out there. I didn t meant to ghost you since the last post in August but it was a necessity. I spent that time finishing my book and turned it in last week. I mean, it s done but of course it will need some editing and there are some accessory documents I need to work on in the next few weeks to keep the publishing process moving along. I m not here to write about…
Gaillardia aestivalis winkleri, white firewheel White firewheel with a nectaring little yellow, Eurema lisa This is a locally uncommon to rare grass, Gymnopogon ambiguus, bearded skeletongrass. I ve only ever seen it over on the Big Sandy Creek Unit of the Big Thicket. I suspect it may be more common in some of these areas but people generally ignore grasses. Oenothera rhombipetala, fourpoint…