A bright day

A bright day

Arkansas Yucca seedpod (Yucca arkansana). Vine twists up the Hackberry tree. Crustose fungus doing its job! Close up. Bedstraw (Galium aparine) has started to pop out. It is an annual. I have read that it was used in bedding. The plant will cling to you with its hairs. I have found several species of caterpillars…

Kansas

Kansas

 Kansas is the name of an American rock band. In 1977 they release a song called “Dust in the Wind”. The song seems appropriate today I think. At 11:18 am there were still clouds lingering but the wind had already started to gust as Gracie, the anemometer shows. At 1:24 pm the clouds were gone…

What lies beneath?

What lies beneath?

  I don’t think anyone has anything on north Texas’ sunrises. Spring Beauty colors! The variation of color ranges from almost white… To these deeper shades. And the yellow at the base of the petals vary too. What lies beneath the bark on this dead Hackberry tree? This is the bark moved back to the…

Weird find

Weird find

The sky had a lot of contrails today. It was cold this morning with a low of 23. However there was not much frost on the ground. Glad there was no wind and plenty of sunshine at noon! By the afternoon it was not so blue. At sunset the sky was full of many different…

Savanna

Savanna

I watched a zoom presentation by Suzanne and I was reminded our LBJ grasslands are more of savanna than a prairie. The difference I found on the internet was “between the two is based on the percent of land covered by trees. Prairies have virtually no tree cover (less than 10 percent), and savannas have…

Down in the creek

Down in the creek

Continuing on with yesterday’s trip to the grasslands down in the creek. This Eastern Red Cedar’s trunk was really red where it was peeling. A nice Purple Cliff-brake fern. This horsetail reminded me of the Empire State building. Not as old horsetail top. This horsetail was pretty fresh. There was places that had quite a…

Slip and slide

Slip and slide

 Slip and slide is what I did when I tried to go up an embankment at the grasslands to look at moss today. Lucky for you I do not have a photograph or maybe it is lucky for me LOL. We had a nice rain last night. Here at the house we got 1/4″ but…

Who is watching

Who is watching

 It was fairly foggy this morning and stayed damp to wet all day. I thought the temperature was fairly nice in the 51 to 55 degree range all day. And no wind. The heaviest the fog we had here was about 1/4 mile. On dreary days, the orange jelly fungus is always a bright spot….

A name

A name

How often does a name elude you? You look at a plant or something, and you say it looks so familiar. It happens too often to me and sometimes it will be hours or even days later when the name pops out.  Ok, sometimes never LOL. Well, this plant was mine today. But I was…

5.38 miles

5.38 miles

 That’s how far Gracie went on the grasslands yesterday. Humans went only 2+ miles in the three and half hours.  A good part of the day was in the gullies and the creek bed. The side of some of the gullies were this red sandy/clay loam. Roots and red sandy/clay loam were beautiful! From the…