“Rice’s whales—like many marine mammals—are subject to various human threats. Vessel collisions and noise, and activities related to energy exploration, development, and production are high on that list. These whales suffered substantial impacts at population-level as a result of the 2010 oil spill, as described in the comprehensive Deepwater Horizon Trustee Council’s Final Programmatic Restoration Plan. It is estimated that 48 percent of the whale’s core habitat was exposed to surface oil, 17 percent of the population died, 22 percent of females had reproductive problems, and an additional 18 percent suffered adverse health effects. Scientists estimate the population declined approximately 22 percent from their pre-spill population size and it will take 69 years for the population to recover from these losses.” - Trophic Interactions and Habitat Requirements of Rice’s Whales via NOAA

Another week, another environmental atrocity.

The hits keep coming and they will continue until regime change and even then…I have my doubts significant course reversal will happen for quite a while.

Here’s the reality: enough people simply do not care. My preferred choice of words would be “give a fuck” because I do think that’s the reality. Care implies one meaning, in my opinion: A tone, a feeling of gentleness, of overall concern and interest. You can not care about something but, perhaps, also don’t necessarily feel significant animosity towards the thing you don’t care about. It can be a neutral term. But not giving a fuck? There’s a negative connotation to that phrase. I think that’s where a significant portion of the population is at when it comes to environmental policy and certainly where this federal administration lands. It’s goes beyond not caring—it’s a strict animosity and their priorities and concerns outweigh the overall health and well-being of not only their neighbors but the environment around them.

You can see this with some of the comments last month regarding the proposed border wall that was to be (and still might be) constructed through Big Bend: nothing is more precious and worth preserving, even ecologically or culturally sensitive, than addressing the perceived threats that only they deem important. And in that case, a mythological amount of immigrants crossing the border through the Big Bend region. It is likely that a significant number, if not all, of the proponents who want the wall through the region have never actually been directly negatively impacted by immigration, illegal or otherwise. At this point, these protestations appear to be reflexive and habitual.

"We cannot allow our own rules to weaken our standing ​and strengthen those who wish to harm us," Hegseth said during the livestreamed meeting. "So for these reasons, exemption from the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf ​is not just a good idea, it is a critical matter of national security." - US exempts Gulf of Mexico drillers from endangered species rules via Reuters

Last Tuesday (03/31/2026), the Endangered Species Committee met to discuss granting exemptions to the Endangered Species Act and subsequent requirements through NEPA processes for oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico under the guise of “national security”. That committee was created in 1978 and is made up of the following people: Secretary of the Interior (Doug Burgum), Secretary of Agriculture (Brooke Rollins), Secretary of the Army (Daniel P. Driscoll), Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (Lee Zeldin), Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Neil Jacobs), one person appointed by the President, and a representative of the affected state. It appears Pierre Yared, Acting Council of Economic Advisers, was also on this list and I presume he was the one person appointed by the President. The Gulf of Mexico isn’t a state, so it doesn’t get representation, apparently.

Obviously, none of the people on this committee are at all friendly to endangered species:

• Doug Burgum is a business man, venture capitalist, and former governor of North Dakota, who is very much pro-oil and gas expansion and US energy independence. He appears to have a net worth somewhere between $100 million and over $1 billion, according to the few articles I was able to find. No one can seem to pin a number down.

• Brooke Rollins is a Texas gal, hailing from Glen Rose. She’s an Aggie with an ag degree and, props to her, was the first woman to be elected student body president at A&M (credit where credit is due! It does appear in the 30 years since, there have only been five other women to serve as SBP…not great, A&M!) Alas, Brooke took her ag degree and got a JD from the rival university and joined a bunch of think tanks and was the instigator of eliminating the Roadless Rule in the USFS last summer.

• Lee Zeldin, who is somehow my age/school cohort, is running EPA. Lee doesn’t have an environmental background, shocker. He has a political science degree, a JD, served in the military, was elected to the NY State Senate and then to the US House, and then tried to run for governor of NY in 2022. Most of his political work is not tied to the environment at all and he’s had dubious statements on the environment that were somewhat walked back during his congressional hearings to be head of EPA. His tenure at EPA has drastically changed the way the agency is run and the rules the office has implemented for decades. He may be the next attorney general if the news rumor mill is correct.

• I was annoyed at Zeldin’s age but Daniel P. Driscoll was born in 1986 so, I guess I’ve reached that age where it seems far-fetched that millennials should be running things. He is the youngest U.S. Army Secretary, so, maybe my instincts aren’t wrong here. Alas, that doesn’t really matter because while Driscoll has a military background and a JD, it seems more important to know that he is friends with JD Vance.

• Neil Jacobs is the most science-based person on this committee, with a PhD in atmospheric science but had primarily worked in research and business development in the private sector before he worked for the first Trump administration. Despite the science background, he has mostly worked as a Trump administration mouthpiece without a lot of backbone and the Union of Concerned Scientists didn’t even like him during the first administration either. Of note, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) or NOAA Fisheries, is of course, under NOAA. NMFS manages marine mammals under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

• Pierre Yared is a Lebanese-American economist with an interest in macroeconomics, heavily focused on debt. This statement from his wiki seems to sum up his presence on this committee: “Yared is described as committed to fiscal restraint and central bank independence, while also supporting U.S. military spending to promote U.S. geopolitical hegemony and financial dominance.”

So, we have a committee of what appears to be people who should never be involved in the decision making surrounding environmental policy, much less policy regarding endangered species. Nary a biologist of any sort on this panel. Sure, Rollins can probably talk cattle and horses, but beyond that?

"I want to highlight that the agency action under consideration — all oil and gas activities in the Gulf of America — encompasses the full suite of actions including various protective measures for the Rice's Whale," said Jacobs. "I will be voting to grant the exemption." - U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for ‘national security’ via NPR

It appears that Dr. Neil Jacobs read the documentation produced by his own agency and thought that Rice’s whales were worth the sacrifice while we instigated a war and threatened our own economic stability along with the rest of the world’s because we elected a madman for a second time.

Elections have consequences, we all know that. Yet, it seems most people keep thinking someone else is going to right the wrongs or prevent the worst of the worst from happening and yet, here we are. Someone else is the electorate and the electorate continues to fail to do their job.

I will say, I am witnessing a very dumb mayoral election in my own tiny city. We haven’t had one in years because it is generally uncontested and finding anyone who wants to take on that role has been difficult. But I’ve been watching it play out on Facebook (yes, I know) and the amount of people who don’t even bother to do basic research astounds me. The same playbook on a federal and state level is just copy and pasted onto the small town level and at least one candidate is just letting a lot of the open ended questions and insinuations posted by residents lie, which leads to gossip/rumors and festers discontent—because well, we’ve let our higher offices get elected in that manner without accountability, so why not replicate it here? It’s gross. Is it any wonder why the electorate failed in the first place?

Gas prices are going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future and impact our daily lives across the board, some in ways we’ve already identified but haven’t wanted to come to terms with, as well as in ways we can’t even begin to fathom. In the meantime, the “God Squad” is putting the lives of species with tenuous populations on the line in the name of economics because of intentionally bad decisions made by the leader of this country. Some of those species were listed in the first place because of economics (sea turtles, whales) - the fisheries industry had decimated oceanic wildlife populations over the last several hundred years because of greed.

And now greed continues to be the biggest threat to endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico.

I’ve been drafting essays in my brain the last few weeks and this one I started, stopped, and floundered around with because there was more bad news last week regarding the USFS closing many of its offices and relocating to Utah. At some point I’ll catch up but by then there will be something else bad to write about. I’ve written about the water crisis here in Texas before but more of that is coming home to roost with the news that Corpus Christi is facing dire water issues and Kerrville is looking to start reclaiming wastewater and treating it for drinking water due to the on-going drought and increased population in the town. And almost daily I see a news story regarding data centers, not just in Texas but throughout the country.

We’re in a pinch-point between cultural, economic, and environmental change and one day we will look back and be able to see the 2020s, and even the mid to late 2010s, as the turning point for some dramatic global upheaval.

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On Monday, Governor Abbott posted to his Instagram account (and I presume other social media outlets) this image and sentiment marking Texas Independence Day. I’m not even going to get into the extreme lack of nuance and truth in his first statement but will direct you instead to the real meat of the post, which is the delusional belief that a/the border wall will somehow make Texas safer—“to keep Texas, Texas”.

Approximately a month ago, news began trickling out that the Big Bend region of the state was very likely going to end up getting a border wall soon, something that’s been discussed for the last decade. It’s very telling to me that the Governor chose to mark Texas Independence Day with this particular photo and to discuss the border wall on the heels of this news. Sure, the primaries were the following day, but looking at the results for his primary, he certainly had no reason to worry about losing his spot on the ballot in November by kowtowing to his far right constituency. So, why choose this sentiment and photo for any other reason than that he very likely supports the destruction of what makes Texas, Texas—that he’s ok losing the cultural and environmental beauty of Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park and the other associated border areas in the region in favor of defending a so-called frontier?

The flip side of this is that I saw that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation re-posted a Reel from Grahame Jones, Executive Director of the Texas Conservation Alliance regarding the proposal. I learned enough when Governor Abbott let Fairfield Lake State Park go to a developer that a lot of the Governor’s opinions and real thoughts were usually weaved through backchannels and advocacy groups. Even so, his heart was never completely in it and he lost Texans an entire state park! He seems willing to do the same right now in the Big Bend, by act of desecration, because it appears he has no spine to challenge the President or most of his constituents. Even some of those constituents are appalled by a completely unnecessary border wall through Big Bend.

So, which is the real message? The one on social media repeating party mantras or the one that may be filtering out via other mouthpieces? Is he so chickenshit that he can’t say what he truly believes or wants to our faces? Tell us the truth Governor Abbott, do you want a border wall through Big Bend or are you just trying to appease Certain People by being coy? Either way, you are up for reelection in November and we’re going to remember your legacy which may very well be one that includes “The Governor Who Destroyed Big Bend”.

Since my essay last week didn’t include Big Bend photos I decided to dig out my photo album from that time and flip through to take a few photos of those photos. Ah, the era of choosing from 24 photos on a roll of film instead of 100+ on a phone camera roll library! But those 24 photos captured the essence of that trip and the freedom of being 19/20 years old and in college in an era where you could truly disconnect from everything.

Those photos showed me just how little of the park we were able to explore during our time there. We hiked to so many great places including one I wasn’t able to recall the name of until I pulled the park map up because I only knew of it based on its location on the map in my brain—Ernst Tinaja. I have photos of the tinaja, too, but didn’t end up choosing those to share here. Looking at the information on the park’s website on how to get to the tinaja, I now wonder how we even managed to drive the road in the vehicles we had at the time! I was also able to figure out that the campground we stayed at was the Rio Grande Village.

I tried digging around for historic records of Governor Abbott’s statements on the border wall through Big Bend and some of the earliest sentiments I’ve seen reference him being “publicly opposed” to a wall in Big Bend, such as this article in the National Review from 2017. 2017 feels like a completely different era in terms of politics or life today. However, one sentiment still seems clear now as it did in 2017:

“Big Bend’s wild, dry, imposing terrain poses its own natural barrier: In 2016, Big Bend had the fewest illegal border crossings “of any sector along the Texas border,” according to the Austin American-Statesman.”

A recent report from December 5, 2025 on the Customs and Border Protection’s website says that illegal border crossings in the Big Bend Sector had fallen significantly in 2025, a decline of 74% from two years prior. I’m leery of trusting data points from any government agency right now, especially one trying to compare numbers from this administration to the previous one, but I’ll use it here to back up the statement from a decade ago.

And here’s a great story from NPR from 2019 with a lot of graphics, including a chart showing just how few illegal border crossings occur in the Big Bend region compared to the rest of the US/Mexico border. And at the heart of this article is the reality: that much of the “illegal immigration” happened by people who came to the US via proper, legal channels and just overstayed their visas.

Building a border wall or fence through the Big Bend region makes no feasible sense other than to make a political statement by the people running this current federal mafia state. Governor Abbott was apparently publicly opposed to a border wall through Big Bend a decade ago and this week he’s posting rhetoric that contradicts those statements. And as legislators from both political parties have been putting out statements of opposition, Abbott has remained silent and unwilling to put forth any real statement on his true thoughts on the issue.

Texans want to hear it from your mouth, Governor Abbott: Do you support building a wall through the Big Bend region or not? You owe us at least that much as the current leader of this state.

“The Texas Revolution began in October 1835 with the battle of Gonzales and ended on April 21, 1836, with the battle of San Jacinto, but earlier clashes between government forces and frontier colonists make it impossible to set dogmatic limits in terms of military battles, cultural misunderstandings, and political differences that were a part of the revolution. The seeds of the conflict were planted during the last years of Spanish rule (1815–21) when Anglo Americans drifted across the Neutral Ground and the eastern bank of the Red River into Spanish territory, squatted on the land, and populated Spanish Texas. More alarming than these illegal residents, who only wanted to “settle and stay,” were filibusters such as Philip Nolan, who commandeered portions of Spanish lands for personal gain and political capital.” - Eugene C. Barker and James W. Pohl, revised by Mary L. Scheer via the Texas State Historical Association.

Further Reading: We Were Illegal: Uncovering A Texas Family’s Mythmaking and Migration by Jessica Goudeau - I also recommend her newsletter.

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I debated using the word chickenshit to describe Greg Abbott but then someone told me WWMID—What Would Molly Ivins Do? and that sealed the deal for me. I’m no St. Molly, but we could certainly use someone like her pushing buttons in today’s political climate. Anyway, if the word fits…

The come down from book writing has finally landed me in a place where I can be creative again. I’m still stuck on completing most writing, however, but have been able to start doing other creative projects to restart my brain. One of those has been junk journaling. I’m one of those people who has a hard time passing up a good journal or sketchbook so I have a small pile that have gone unused over the years and they have found use in the last few weeks for this little project. My years of dedicated scrapbooking in the 2000s left me with an ample stash of papers and ephemera which has come in handy, too. I find limiting myself to a certain amount of supplies prevents overwhelm. This applies to magazines as well. You only need a few, less than 5, to really choose words and associated photos to throw into the collage. So far my favorite magazine has been Magnolia Journal, of which I only have one issue to work from, due to its wide range of font styles throughout and its general positive affirmation tone to pull phrases from. The best place I’ve found to find magazines is my Friends of the Library sale rack at the library, where magazines are 10 cents each. It’s been a great place to find issues of Texas Highways because I don’t necessarily want to cut up my own subscription issues but will certainly cut into a second one I bought for next to nothing.

Taking the Scenic Route is on my mind this week as I’ve been hearing the news coming out about the border wall expansion into the Big Bend region. It’s vomit inducing, like just about anything having to do with this administration. I have only been to Big Bend National Park once, back in the spring of 2000 for Spring Break during college. Six of us drove from Galveston to the National Park in two different vehicles. People had cell phones back then of course, but I don’t know that anyone in the group beyond my husband, then-boyfriend, had one and we certainly didn’t have the foresight to exchange cell phone numbers before we got on I-45 North to head out of town. Our two vehicles stayed together until around I-610 South when the other car exited (to loop around to I-10) and we kept going north through downtown to get on I-10 there. I have a vague recollection of the three of us in Chris’ car (me, Chris, and our friend Rosemarie) shrugging and hoping for the best that we’d just meet up with them at Big Bend.

We drove all day and finally arrived at the park entrance some 12+ hours later to find no sign that the others had arrived. I don’t even recall if we had a reservation or if that was even a thing at that point in time. Given that we didn’t even exchange cell phone numbers, if even the others in the group had one, I’m going with the story that we likely winged the whole situation and were hoping we’d find a campsite once we arrived. Alas, pay phones still existed (no cell signal in Big Bend in those days, I wonder if that’s changed?) so I called my parents to let them know what was going on and then called the dorm room of two of the girls in the other vehicle and left a message on their phone. There happened to be a private campground outside the park that we were able to stay at for the night and the next morning our friends showed up. They’d driven as far as Seguin the first time but turned back to Galveston having worried we’d turned around once we’d split up. Once they got our voicemail they drove through the night to meet us out at the park. Ah, the days of college adventures and poor planning that still managed to work out in some manner!

We spent the rest of the week camping and hiking around the park and even crossed into Mexico the old fashioned away, by paying some Mexicans to ferry us across the Rio Grande. We walked into Boquillas del Carmen with the other American tourists and I can’t recall if we did anything other than walk around and sightsee once we got to the village. This was pre-9/11 so we’re talking minimum to no security. Certainly no passport was needed. None of my photos are digitized and I didn’t feel like scanning any for this essay. Honestly, when I sat down to write this I had no idea how it was going to even come out.

I’ve wanted to return to Big Bend National Park ever since but have not made it happen. Big Bend Ranch State Park has been higher on my list to visit than the National Park but our forays into west Texas in the last decade have always taken us to the Davis Mountains and we enjoy that area so much we haven’t expanded beyond there.

“A prevailing notion across the land was now that industry and industry allies carefully placed at the regulatory agencies should take pride in getting away with it. There seemed to be a schoolyard belief that because one side of the political divide has made it a point to protect the land and water of the commons, the other side ought to make it a point to exploit, abuse, and even despise the commons. And the glee over their many “victories” was repulsive to me.” - Jay Erskine Leutze in Stand Up That Mountain

The Appalachian Trail is a National Scenic Trail, primarily administered by the National Park Service in conjunction with a plethora of other federal, state, and local agencies where the footpath crosses. At approximately 2,200 miles long, its protected width varies depending upon the public land it is passing through at any given time. In some areas, particularly in Virginia and the mid-Atlantic states, the trail may be confined to narrow mountain ridges where viewpoints extend down into valleys below where hikers generally get extensive glimpses of farmland or small towns nearby. The AT is crossed by transmission lines and pipelines as well as roads throughout its corridor.

After the many decades long effort to secure a permanent and protected trail corridor, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy has been focusing on the trail’s viewshed which is just as important as protecting the footpath itself. Who wants to come to a view along their hike to see a massive mining operation or trash dump instead of miles of pastoral or mountain scenes? No one.

Published in 2012, Stand Up That Mountain by Jay Erskine Leutze chronicles the fight to stop a gravel mine from destroying a mountain near the Roan Highlands in western North Carolina. Not only was this mine going to affect the quality of life and health of locals but it was going to severely impact the viewshed of the Appalachian Trail. The views and trail itself of the AT are already impacted in some areas, the most notable being the area around Palmerton, PA in the Lehigh Gap where decades of industrial zinc smelting led to the impacted areas being declared a Superfund Site. The trail traverses this area and while the pollution impacts are slowly being mitigated, it will take centuries for the environment to be healed here.

Viewsheds aren’t just important to trails. It’s why we have NIMBYism for all sorts of projects around the country. No one wants massive condos being built in what were formerly early to mid-century residential streets in urban areas. It impacts lighting and shades out neighboring homes and often destroys older growth trees. Who wants a new power plant built half a mile from their home? No one.

Protecting the scenic view of areas is so important we have the Dark Sky program because we’ve deemed seeing stars at night is of greater importance than lighting up the landscape to see during a period of time we weren’t meant to have light. Even the Bureau of Land Management has a Visual Resource Management component to their agency.

So, why are we building a border wall through some of the most scenic and remote areas of the U.S./Mexico border? (To be clear, I hate the wall as a whole as you’ll see below. In my daydreams where I become the first woman President, the first thing I do is my own version of “tear down this wall.” Alas…)

I don’t really spend any time around the Texas border. I would like to visit more often as there are several refuges and parks along the area that are home to some unique plants and animals, particularly migratory bird and lepidopteran species that come into the area from south and central America. In 2022 I saw the border wall/fence for the first time. It’s ugly. Let me rephrase that: It’s ugly AF. And of course it doesn’t follow the actual border of the U.S. and Mexico because that border in Texas is the Rio Grande and the river isn’t straight; therefore, the wall is placed quite a bit inside the U.S. and you have to go through the wall in some areas if you want to access the area behind it, which is still the United States.

Sabal Palm Sanctuary is located southeast of Brownsville and Matamoros along the river. We had to pass through the wall to get to the sanctuary and the little sign in the photo above really has to reassure visitors that indeed you are in the right place despite the Big Scary Wall and your phone dinging to tell you, “Welcome to Mexico. These rates may apply to your plan.” But I’m not in Mexico!

As you can see, the wall is ugly and intrusive, even in the most benign and not-so-scenic-to-most-people locations outside of Brownsville. It is miles of tall metal fencing that obstructs the viewshed and disrupts the migratory pathway of wildlife. The viewshed here may be a patchwork of farm fields, rural homes, or natural areas, certainly perhaps nothing that might compare to the distinct desert landscapes of the Big Bend region—but it’s also not nothing. The viewshed here matters, too.

But take all of this I’ve shown you above and imagine it in Santa Elena Canyon. Or Big Bend Ranch State Park.

If those places aren’t sacred, then nothing is.

And we’ve seen enough from this federal administration and its previous incarnation that public lands in general are not sacred to any of them.

I’m not sure at this point in time protesting does much of anything. I’ve written to state and federal representatives time and time again, only to get nowhere. I have no faith in my own Texas legislators to do anything because they are bootlickers to this administration. That said, I still email to at least have my opinion on record.

I suggest you do the same.

In Texas I like to use this link: Who Represents Me? for easy access to all of my legislators. Even if you aren’t in Texas, please reach out to your representatives because Big Bend National Park is federally managed and is visited by people throughout the country and world. Your opinion matters.

More information and to get involved at No-Al-Muro.com.

Watch: The River and the Wall documentary.

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Hercules' Club (Zanthoxylum clava-herculis)

My husband, son, and I went for a hike at Stephen F. Austin State Park in San Felipe yesterday afternoon. It was quite chilly and I don’t like being cold so I was bundled up in several layers. However, the sun was out and the light was fantastic and despite the cold it was a gorgeous day to be outside. I’m still slightly burnt out from hiking in the Big Thicket right now so it was a delight to be in a different habitat, one that had a lot of Hercules’ club trees on the landscape. Their distinctive bark makes them easy to identify, though, there were also a lot of sugar hackberries (Celtis laevigata) at this state park and they also have growths on their trunks, however they are more warty and less sharp than Hercules’ club trees. Still, both sometimes resemble each other in less mature trees and can trip up those who aren’t as familiar with either plant.

Common Script Lichen (Graphis scripta)

I have been trying to get into lichens the last few months, well, in reality for a lot longer than that. Winter’s lack of vascular plant blooms make looking for non-vascular plants and fungal/algae/cyanobacteria symbiotic relationships like lichens much more interesting right now. Unfortunately, I’m not very great at identifying a lot of them yet because regional books are scarce and I’m generally too lazy to look at things under a microscope (mosses and liverworts). But I’m still out there taking photos of lichens and uploading them to iNaturalist in hopes I will eventually get around to identifying them correctly. One that I do recognize pretty well these days is common script lichen. Sometimes I don’t realize what it is until I’m up close taking a photo with my phone and then I’m delighted to realize how much of it is covering the particular tree I’m looking at. I find it hard not to stop by trees now when I see anything growing on them because you’ll quickly find a lot of different species growing on their trunks!

• Swamp Azalea (Rhododendron viscosum)

  

  I’m not sure this is a totally a good thing given that these were blooming 4-5 months out of their typical season, but it was really nice to see swamp azaleas blooming at the Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve a few weekends ago when we were having a work day. And speaking of WRNPP, I have recently taken over as editor of the newsletter for the Preserve and you can subscribe to it here if you’d like to keep up on what is happening there!

I would love to hear what is keeping you going as we kick off February. Share your delights from January whether they be books, music, plants, wildlife…let me know!

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It’s amazing how quickly my optimism at returning to writing here on a semi-regular basis was obliterated once the weeks started ticking by this month. Because, wow, were we expecting 2026 to start like this?

My mental state, for a variety of reasons, has been all of over the place. I find the twinge to write but don’t have time. Have the time, but don’t have the twinge. Repeat ad nauseum. The world is crashing down around us and all I want to do is poke around outside on a trail, walking very slowly, to look for little bits of nature to iNat or take photos of. I have no agenda other than being quiet. I do not want to think (which is very difficult when you have ADHD and your mind is never quiet except for a few precious hours when meds kick in) and just want to see. Puttering.

I’m still coming down off of the frenzy of finishing my book. I have a pile of accessory documents to finish and am hoping that holing up in the house this weekend for the winter weather that’s predicted will knock a significant chunk of that off my to-do list so I can move forward with being able to do other things. I never want to think of this book again once I finish what I need to do. Which is a problem because it will be published eventually and then I will have to market it so I can sell it. And I will. But I need to wade through the burnout first. Do other writers have this problem? Working on a project for so long that eventually they want nothing to do with it? It’s not like I hated the subject or even doing the work itself but it took up so much space in my brain that looking at it now kind of makes me turn my nose up to it all. I just thought of a metaphor: I tend to get fixated on certain foods for long periods of time and then bam it becomes disgusting and I want nothing to do with it. Of course I’ll come back around to it in like six months to a year, though sometimes I never come back to them. (I’m looking at you Knorr rice and pasta sides…I never want to eat you again. Thank you thru-hiking!)

Digression aside, things just feel and are hard right now and I don’t think I’m alone in that notion. I’ve been filing away items I’ve seen the last few months to write about: AI data centers and the associated powerline and pipelines that are being considered to power them; public lands; sprawl; book reviews; naturalist interviews; conservation as a long term strategy; normalcy bias…and on. Where do I even start?

One thing I learned about the Big Thicket and the conservation around that is the work is never ending. It took several decades of dedicated work to see results and the results were only a sliver of the intended goal. At least we got the sliver because it would absolutely all be gone if nothing had been done. The effort wasn’t a one person job. It took someone(s) to write strong editorials in magazines and newspapers condemning officials for impeding progress on the project; others to be vocal in public meetings or at legislative sessions; quieter folks to coordinate with landowners and public officials behind the scenes; elected officials who acted with integrity and empathy to conservation efforts; and countless volunteers who came to meetings, led hikes, organized protests, letter writing campaigns, and talked to neighbors to sway opinions.

Conservation of the Big Thicket did not come without strife from opponents and that carries across other public land conservation efforts to this day. We lack significant science and environmental education in this country and honestly, throughout the world. The last few weeks Joey Santore of Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t has been ranting about issues he’s facing in his Lower Rio Grande Valley town just because he wants to plant a native tree in a hellstrip to eventually create shade in the neighborhood to counteract the urban heat island effect in his community. He’s run into problems from neighbors seemingly being afraid of the tree because the leaf litter it may produce is considered “dirty” to them, to local law enforcement zoning out moments after Joey starts talking to explain the real issue, and town officials getting grouchy about him even wanting to do this at all because, well, it is counter to how things operate in cities in general.

So, you have Joey wanting to plant one tree and getting so much flack for it, meanwhile we’re facing environmental destruction from AI data centers and more. While there are people upset about the data centers, government agencies are rolling over and letting it happen because, well, who cares if habitat is destroyed, water resources are depleted, and new power plants are being built near neighborhoods just to power these data centers. One tree = the world ending and such a difficult ordeal. Destroying ecosystems = good for business!

This is what we’re up against. The cognitive dissonance is LOUD.

How do you counteract such ingrained cross-cultural disdain for the environment? It takes upending the systems we are living in, which is capitalism for sure, as well as other anti-nature systems that promulgate this ethos. Unfortunately I won’t see this reversal in my lifetime and neither will most (any?) of y’all reading this.

Which is why I’ve just been puttering. Because crouching down to look for liverworts, lichens, and tiny little plants has been far more regulating to my brain than trying to figure out how to write about all of this.

The last several months since I signed off from here were a whirlwind. I signed off from writing but I also stopped reading newsletters completely. My brain had no room for anything but 1: my book, 2: my family, 3: work, 4: friends, 5: the collapse of the world. That’s it. Which, is A Lot.

Bleary eyed, I sent off my manuscript to my editor at 2:15 am on New Year’s Day after spending the prior 72 hours writing furiously. I swear this book grew more difficult with every word I typed. It was, pardon the terrible imagery, like a piece of food you keep chewing and chewing and somehow you just can’t manage to swallow it because the food keeps growing in your mouth. Yeah, yeah, I know. But really, that’s how it felt. The other metaphor was about moving, how when you are moving houses and you see all of the boxes you’ve packed up and you think you are really almost done, and then you look around all the rooms at the random crap still strewn about and you realize just how much is left to pack. Then you start throwing it in random boxes just to be done—you’ll deal with it when you unpack later. Of course, behind all of that is cleaning up! It feels never ending, you are just never going to move! Or, in this case, I was never going to have some kind of finished product, despite the fact I had seen the finished product in my mind for months already. I knew how it was going to come together but it had to get out of my brain first. Which felt unimaginable until the moment I was done writing.

The cleaning up part, well, I had done most of that as I went along but there are some minor formatting issues I do still need to deal with, unfortunately. Of course later that day I thought of some things I wanted to add to clarify a few points and I’m pretty sure I should have added photos into a few spots in the introduction.

Speaking of photos, did you know what a huge pain in the ass it is to format placeholders for photos and maps? Wow, did I learn a lot about that. I’m still unsure if I did it right. At 9:00 pm on December 31st I turned my focus to this “last thing” I needed to do, the photo placeholder labels, thinking, surely it won’t take me three hours to do…I’ll be home before midnight! No, it took me almost 5 and I slept in the floor of my work office for the second night in a row. That’s the thing about this book: I could not accurately determine how long something was going to take me to write or finish at any given point in time. It all went so much slower than I was thinking it would.

The maps…oh, the maps! Don’t get me started on that. I had been working on them steadily since late July, reformatting some of the ones I had begun to work on a year before when I was just starting out on all of this. I didn’t particularly like what I’d come up with for my proposal, especially after I had started collecting data. GPS points for things like bridges would not line up with waterways or wetlands I could pull from public agency sources that I was relying on to use. I quickly realized I could not be placing a bridge over a creek that was significantly off in any capacity. And I couldn’t just move the bridge because then mileage wouldn’t add up. So, I started drawing in waterways using aerial imagery and LiDAR. Maybe one day I will get into the amount of work I put into gathering background data for this but it was extremely time consuming to download and then mosaic together and then toggle back and forth between layers. I use GIS for my day job so making maps is part of what I do as a career but this was much more than what I was anticipating. And my perfectionist tendencies took the driver’s seat many times. I could have probably slapped the trails down on a USGS topo map and called it a day but in the end, and knowing what I’ve seen of topos over the years, they sometimes suck and don’t provide much information, especially on short trails. And in this part of Texas, everything is flat.

That was the maps. Then there was the writing, which I didn’t start doing heavily until November after I’d finished hiking my last trail in late October. I already had my outline and sample hikes from my proposal, plus had been writing in my brain for more than a year, so I knew how it would come together. But between finalizing maps and toggling back to writing, wow. So many bits of information to source, a lot I already had but then I had to dig around for more things. This is where I know I ended up jacking up some on the consistency in some areas which I will start fixing next week while I wait for my editor to get back to me with edits on his end. My least favorite thing was trying to describe the terrain for a trail or park. I don’t know, there’s dirt and mud, sometimes, and vegetation…it’s flat. What more do you want to know? It’s a trail in the woods! Come on! I know that stuff is beneficial, I just could not describe it well at all because it was so boring to me.

So, that’s out of my hands for now. I received an out of office reply after I submitted, which I expected given the holiday season. I still have some things I need to wrap-up, including a photo caption sheet and apparently an alt-text photo sheet (a new addition I just found out about), which should be Lots Of Fun given I had 136 photos.

I’m looking forward to writing here again. I have a lot of commentary that I’ve been holding onto the last half year. I have many thoughts about what I have learned about hiking the places I hiked the last two years. I may hold off on that part for a bit because I am formulating at least one other book in my brain about it all. I will say, I don’t think we’ve learned many of the lessons I thought we had learned from the past. I believe a lot of us tend to look at some of the conservation movement of the last 60-70 years with rose-colored glasses, when in reality things were and are a lot starker than we realize.

Be back soon with more writing!

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Hello out there! It’s been almost two months since I’ve cracked open Substack to write. I’ve opened the app and desktop to glance at Notes and read a newsletter or two but I’ve not done much reading or writing on Substack since early September. I’ve had my head down and nose to the ground hiking the last two months, finalizing the last areas I needed to finish for my book. Floods and hurricanes in 2024 really wrecked plans to visit some of these places which is why they were held off until last. Thankfully no hurricanes this year and a late summer drought made some of these areas much more accessible to hike.

I’ve been mostly working on maps when I’m not hiking, though not as much as I should have been doing. I’ve gone through several incarnations of maps before I finally settled on a format I liked and that a few reviewers appreciated, too. Next stop: writing my way to the finish line. NaNoWriMo doesn’t exist anymore, at least the capacity writers knew of for years, but I plan to basically use November as a NaNoWriMo to get this book finished. The good thing is, I already have a template based on my proposal and have been writing in my head for nearly two years now, so I already know what to say.

The Big Sandy Trail in the Big Sandy Creek Unit of the Big Thicket National Preserve was my last trail to hike. Coming in at around 15ish miles (actual mileage tbd as I compile my GPS data), this one is relatively tame terrain-wise due to it being on old, graded logging roads. It is the length that gets you and it is one way in, one way out, generally. I say generally, because there are a couple of alternative two-tracks that are still accessible and would offer up other entry points into the Preserve if the NPS maintained those. I digress, but will absolutely be writing more about everything I found and thought about our public lands while hiking the last two years.

I had no desire to do an overnight backpacking trip or a really long hike for this one so my husband and son came out with me and they meandered down the trail and drove down one of the dirt roads in this unit while I biked my way deep into the Preserve. This is one trail in the Preserve that is open to bike users and I was going to make use of that to knock these miles out. To say that I am burnt out is an understatement. I am ready for some slow ambling. To sit in a small perimeter and watch butterflies.

All of this is to say, I have many things to write about but have this priority first. I’ve had a number of new subscribers plus a couple of paid subscribers so I didn’t want to leave everyone hanging without writing for four months. Consider this a little nugget of writing to get you through until the end of the year. And hello new subscribers! Thanks for reading!

I’ll be back in January with more essays.

Oh, don’t forget, election day is November 4th. There are a number of propositions on the Texas ballot, including one regarding funding for water resources infrastructure. I had a lot of conflicting thoughts about that one and even the environmental orgs I follow were somewhat conflicted. We need vital upgrades to much of our water infrastructure in the state but this funding was paired with potential projects like more desalination plants and reservoirs, which are complicated issues that come with a whole host of their own environmental issues. I went ahead and voted for it, hoping we could just fight any unsavory projects as they came. I’m not sure what the answer is here, other than revising how propositions are written. Because I don’t know about you, but what our elected officials give us for propositions is atrocious. Of course, that’s by design, though it shouldn’t be.

Alas, until January!

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Hello dear readers!

Let’s have a little catch-up, shall we?

I thought about throwing this one behind a paywall but opted not to. It will be a little more personal than usual, which was the point of starting the paywall situation, but eh, sometimes you might as well overshare with everyone and let the thoughts flow freely.

First, some programming notes for the rest of the year. While I generally post a few times a month, sometimes on a weekly basis, I don’t typically have a schedule. Sometimes life gets away from me and I go a month without writing. That said, whatever schedule or non-schedule I’ve had, for the rest of the year expect only two newsletters a month. Why? Well, it is crunch time for my book.

If you are a newer subscriber and missed it, I’m writing a Big Thicket region hiking guidebook and my manuscript is due by the end of the year. I’ve been doing hikes since late 2023 and still have a couple left to finish up. These are hikes that are harder to deal with because of either length (18 mi), or hurricane/storms (the 18 mi one was closed for quite a while and others were flooded), and summer + mosquitoes. Also, I’ve been dealing with killer plantar fasciitis for several years now and so my ability to do sustained hiking multiple days or weekends in a row is low/uninteresting to me sometimes. I heading back to physical therapy after a stint in 2023 due to a hip impingement. Turns out, my hips still have mobility issues and, well, body parts don’t work separate from each other. While my hip issues aren’t what they were in 2023 they are still informing how my feet function in 2025. Pair this with being 45 and in the throes of perimenopause—it’s all great. Like, I expected my body to break down at some point, just not this soon.

So, yeah, the book has to become my priority, writing-wise, for a few months. I am actually very excited about it, finally. I went in cycles of being excited about it to then terrified about it. Thoughts have ranged from, “Why did I come up with this idea?” to “This is going to suck so much.” to “I’m not capable of doing this.” Like, why didn’t I stick with writing fiction? Hah!

I will say, some positive feedback I’ve received from a few folks regarding the maps I’ve made has given me the confidence boost I was looking for to continue onward. That’s what I’ve been focusing on recently, making the maps. They’ve had several incarnations from the proposal in late 2023 until now and I think I’m finally in the place where I have a format I love and that is functional to use going forward. The writing part will be easier to do, I think, just recalling the sample hikes I put together for the proposal. I’ve talked myself out of some of the more intensive writing and research I had planned to do for this book and am already planning to work on another proposal for a secondary (non-guide) book about the Big Thicket after this one is turned in. I’m actually finally invigorated about this project and the future project as well as some other fiction writing I want to work on in 2026.

And all of that is in part to my new friend Vyvanse.

Turns out, I have ADHD. Well, I’ve thought I’ve had it for a few years now, thanks to social media and a few online friends, as well as a couple of real life friends who have had late ADHD diagnoses in recent years. When those women shared their stories and I looked at their personalities and was like, well, we’re similar, what do you mean you have ADHD??? I do that too…Ohhhhhhhh, hmmmm. After some reading and podcast listening over the last few years, and finally a conversation with a psychiatric nurse practitioner late this past spring, I found myself in front of a psychologist to have a full neuropsych evaluation. Which, honestly, is quite terrible. Digging out some of the worst parts of yourself, habits, thought processes, and things from childhood just so you can get legal access to a controlled substance that will help you better function in life isn’t something I really recommend doing unless you have to. Alas, I went through it and learned a lot about myself in all of that reflection. Turns out, women and girls, and non-typical presenting boys, were really screwed over in the 80s and 90s. I very clearly see the ADHD in my childhood self now.

Which brings me to: the book and writing. It’s crunch time. I don’t fit some of the ADHD stereotypes but a few of them I do. I don’t procrastinate on everything but there are times/items that I do, and I have done some procrastinating on this project. I told myself when I did the proposal for this book that I was going to work on it as I went. I mean, I did. I downloaded data and edited GPS tracks as I went, as well as edited photos. I’ve been reading books and doing a lot of thinking about the book, reformatting in my head. But I did not do any writing or much map making like I had planned. So, of course, here I am, four months out from deadline and the crunch is crunching.

Where that leaves me here: less writing. My plans for that include: I have two people lined up who were interested in doing a Q&A interview about their own interactions with Texas nature and will be getting those out in the next few months; re-purposing some older writing from this newsletter or my blog; and shorter informational PSAs that need action, such as the upcoming potential that our government will rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule from our National Forests. This would be Very Bad. Comments are open via that link, but I’ll be writing more on that next week. I won’t have time for the longer essays I typically write, though who knows, I may get a wild hair and get one written when the mood strikes.

Thanks for hanging in there until January; though we all have too much vying for our attention these days, I’m sure one less item to read will be good for everyone. I’m really excited about this book and want to make it look great so that people will want to explore the Big Thicket! Exploring the Big Thicket means a greater chance of wanting to protect and expand it, too.

Until next time…

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“New” is a bit of a misnomer: this plant has always existed and was not actually recently “discovered”. It wasn’t lurking about in some remote corner of Texas where botanists rarely wandered—it’s been in plain sight and visited by naturalists for years. What’s new about it is that for several years now, possibly longer, botanists and naturalists have been scratching their heads at this species wondering if it really should be keyed out to Asclepias tomentosa, velvetleaf milkweed, or if it was something else entirely. Two weeks ago, research finally came out defining this cryptic species as something separate from A. tomentosa.

Why, you ask? Well, let’s look at the distribution of A. tomentosa over on iNaturalist.

Florida is the epicenter of A. tomentosa with sightings fairly thick in the north-central portion of the state. There’s a smattering of sightings in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. And then alllll the way across the coastal plain, crossing the Mississippi, there’s our population in east Texas. Disjunct plant populations aren’t that uncommon but they are headscratchers to be sure. I know of several species we have in Texas that are absolutely considered to be native and yet some of their nearest populations are in South America. And not the northern part of it, either. How? Why? Good questions! I suspect, like our “new” milkweed species, if you did genetics you’d be able to differentiate the disjunct populations for some of these species.

Focusing in on A. tonkawae here in Texas, by and large most plants can be found at Gus Engeling WMA. The WMA is a spectacular botanical gem that primarily sees visitation by hunters with supplementation by botanists and naturalists. It’s such a fascinating habitat with deep sand post oak savannas, pitcher plant bogs, tannin rich creeks, and bottomland hardwoods. I’ve been meaning to start working on public land profiles here and GE WMA was one of the first ones I had planned on doing. It’s time to get around to that, I think.

The other plants shown on this map are mostly on private lands.

Which means there is a high likelihood more plants are hiding away on other public and private tracts in the region where there is suitable soil and habitat. Most private landowners aren’t managing for any kind of natural habitat and land tends to be degraded by running (too many) cattle or by lack of fire management. Neglect and general obliviousness to what is even growing on your own property lends cryptic species like this to hide in plain sight. Or disappear without anyone ever knowing.

“One major problem in biodiversity science is determining the number of species in any taxonomic group. “Cryptic species” which are species that exhibit low morphological differentiation but exhibit considerable genetic differentiation from other closely related species (e.g., Smith et al. 2006; Bickford et al. 2007; Burns et al. 2008; Janzen et al. 2017), may contribute to the problem.”

“A. tomentosa and A. tonkawae are sister species (Figure 3). A major question is where the ancestral species originated and how these disjunct sets of populations arrived where they are. Dispersal theories must be considered because milkweeds have wind‐blown seeds. If “sweepstakes” dispersal events occurred across 1,000 km via wind‐blown seeds, then we would expect more intermediate populations of A. tomentosa or A. tonkawae on sandylands in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Eocene sands are present in northern Louisiana. They have received attention from botanists who are familiar with A. tomentosa with negative results (MacRoberts and MacRoberts 1995).”

The authors go on to state and hypothesize that there are other deep sand floral and faunal species that are endemic to these deep sand areas in Florida, the Carolinas, and Texas, which suggests the possibility of a “trans‐Mississippian sand bridge at some time in the past.” Another hypothesis put forward is the potential of population movement when the Gulf of Mexico was lower during the Pleistocene and sandier habitats were above the current water sea level, allowing for movement with wind dispersal between Florida and Texas.

I want to point something out here, Dr. Godwin’s note of the Carrizo and Sparta Sand habitats that this species lives in, which leads to the following image.

This is generalized map showing the aquifers of Texas. I have a Google Alert set for the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer and I get hits on it every week because it is constantly being referred to in news articles as a source of water for thirsty central Texas cities. Then there’s the deep wells at the former Fairfield Lake State Park. And more recently, making even bigger news, Kyle Bass’ plans to pump 16 billion gallons of water out of the aquifer every year. I’ve been meaning to write about that for a couple of months now but haven’t got around to it. It also plays back into Fairfield Lake State Park. Soon.

Which brings us back to A. tonkawae. The authors of the paper in conjunction with Texas Parks and Wildlife have assigned the milkweed a NatureServe Global Conservation Ranking of G1S1, which means it is critically imperiled both globally and within the state and at risk of local extirpation or extinction due to its restricted range and unique habitat requirements.

“Threats include extensive habitat conversion to non‐native pastures (coastal Bermuda and Bahia grass pastures); housing expanding in Tyler, Athens, Palestine, Quitman, Mineola, and other areas; conversion of habitat to monoculture pine; herbicide spraying to benefit grasses for grazing; natural fire regime highly reduced to non‐existent; and extensive land fragmentation.”

It doesn’t take much to realize what is likely to happen if there’s a water war on the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in conjunction with expansion of development in the region.

Let’s take a look at Gus Engeling WMA and the surrounding habitats for a second.

GE WMA is that dark green north-south rectangle in the center of the map. You can see cleared pastures all around and some streamside management zones with hardwoods that weren’t completely removed by landowners. The stark difference in habitat quality is distinct when on the ground, however. That brown, sandy area on the north end of the WMA is one of the areas of deep sand and is high quality habitat with a lot of very interesting species. Every time I visit I look across at those pastures before we get to the WMA and am almost sick to my stomach at what was destroyed decades ago.

What could have been.

What was.

Habitat fragmentation is brutal. It may look “green” on the ground but a cattle pasture isn’t an unaltered oak savanna and the species richness and biodiversity are drastically different.

I can only hope that as news of this “new” species comes to light, landowners in the region might take note and consider looking for it on their own property. Instead of seeing it as a threat, see it as a bright spot of biodiversity on their land. I know this is not the mainstream thought process but it is one I wish a few people might take to heart. If you want to see Asclepias tonkawae yourself, GE WMA is the best place to see it on public land for now. As always, plant poaching on public lands is a No No. Take all the photos you want, leave the plants and seeds.

It is likely in the next year or two we’ll get news that the genetic work for the Georgia and Carolina populations are also different species. I’ll update when I hear about those.

I’ll end with two other recent discoveries due to genetic work for faunal species:

• Everyone’s favorite coastal friends (haha) the Portuguese Man O’ War, Physalia physalis, aren’t one species, they are at least four different species! This work was initialized via citizen science submissions on iNaturalist! If you are out there noticing nature, even if you don’t know what something is, someone else does and you may be contributing to the expansion of scientific knowledge!

• A third manta ray species, Mobula yarae, the Atlantic manta ray, was recently described after years of work by Dr. Andrea Marshall and other colleagues around the world. Dr. Marshall also did the work 15 years ago in doing the initial split from one manta ray species into two.

I hope all of this goes to show that there is still plenty to discover in our world. We just need to pay attention and notice and hope like hell there’s funding to do the research to describe these new species in the future. And hope conservation and caring from the public catch up in the meantime.

Full milkweed article: Phylogenomics Reveals Deep Divergences and Cryptic Species within a Rare Sand-Dwelling Milkweed, Asclepias tomentosa Elliot.

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My parents live in suburban Fort Worth and have been at this house since, well, it was either NYE 1985 or NYD 1986, I can’t recall which one is correct. I was five and in kindergarten when we moved into the house and I remember how little tree cover and vegetation there was at that time, pretty much an indicator of any new development in Texas, then and now. My parents planted out pecan and elm trees, little twigs that are now full-fledged trees that host squirrel families who pilfer pecans every year. Seeing the subdivision age over the last 40 years has been an interesting process as wildlife began really coming back into the picture in the last 15-20 years. There are reports of foxes and coyotes running the streets, hiding out in whatever lots are still undeveloped in the area, a common story across the country. And now raptors like Mississippi kites perch in those mature suburban trees planted by homeowners back in the 80s and early 90s. My mom took an interest several years ago to a few of those kites who would hang around for a while during migration and they became “her” birds every year when they passed through.

Part of me wonders how much of all of this was quietly existing in the suburban areas at that time but went unnoticed by me and everyone else, and the other part wonders how much was wiped out but has slowly been re-establishing in the decades since development. Starting in the early 90s, I was generally an environmentally conscious kid; there were a lot of Earth Day programs and proactive discussions about recycling and greenhouse gases back then. However, I was also terrified of spiders and insects and was typically in my own world, either reading books inside or, when I was outside, playing baseball in the front yard with neighborhood kids or riding my bike up and down the street. When I became a teenager I was in my own head and wrapped up in friends and crushes on boys; noticing Mississippi kites flying overhead wasn’t anywhere on my radar.

But, when my parents start finding interesting natural history bits in their own yard, my interest is always piqued. Take this yellow garden spider, Argiope aurantia, my dad found a few weekends ago when I was up there visiting. He came in from doing something outside and mentioned a large spider out front. Based on his description I immediately knew it was likely this species but went outside to check later just to be sure. This species did not exist in my parent’s yard from 1986-2002. I know it didn’t because I would have been terrified if I had seen it during that time period. A giant spider?! Someone kill it, please!

I recall, as a child, entering the hallway that led to all of our bedrooms and seeing a giant (to my child-sized eyes) daddy long legs spider on the wall and freaking out. I’m 100% sure my dad came in and killed it with a shoe or the newspaper. In hindsight, that scary spider was probably an Eastern Harvestman, Leiobunum vittatum, which are harmless arachnids unless you happen to be plants, fungi, and smaller arthropods.

Over the years, somehow I went from being terrified of insects and spiders (the annual spring crane fly explosion was also a traumatic event in our household) to having little chats with the jumping spiders that take up residence in tiny corners of my house. Sure, little friend, you can stay there, just let me sweep up this dust right here, I promise you can stay. And I talk to the spiders in the garden, too. Sorry, ma’am, just need to pull these weeds. Oops, didn’t mean to mess up your web!

Now, do I necessarily want Ms. Argiope Aurantia walking on me? Nope. I walked into many webs of her cousin(s), the Madame(s) Trichonephila Clavipes, when I lived in Florida. It’s the luck of being the first person to break a trail in the morning. When the light is just right sometimes you can’t see the web until it smacks you in the face. Next thing you know, you are laying on your back in the middle of the trail, stuck like a turtle with your pack on your back, flailing about and freaking out about a spider possibly crawling on your head!

There can be an evolution in understanding, going from the instinct to kill every insect in sight to befriending them, well, at least some of them. Is anyone really cozying up to mosquitoes and ticks? And alongside that evolution, we come to notice the natural world more, to see its interplay in our own backyards, whether they are suburban subdivisions or rural cabins.

The little bits of undeveloped land around my parent’s house are slowly being developed. A lot that had been empty for decades was cleared this past spring for townhomes. I’m biding my time to go up for a visit one weekend to find a gas station on the corner of another lot. Even if these empty lots aren’t truly wild in the way we imagine nature to be, they still serve as places for rainwater runoff to filter through before heading to the nearest creek, or serve as pollinator habitat with the mix of native and non-native wildflowers that pop up in the spring, if they aren’t mowed down before peak bloom. These edge spaces fill a niche, mini-wildlife corridors shuttling fauna of all shapes and sizes through to the islands of nature existing in the nearest cul-de-sac.

Eventually they bring in yellow garden spiders that build webs outside the childhood rooms of adults who love nature.

“The genus name Argiope was taken from Greek mythology and means “of the silver face,” while the species name aurantia basically means “overlaid with gold.”

Even though these references relate to colors, rather than precious metals, in my book Argiopes really are as good as gold.” - via Good Natured

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Gratitudes + Delights is a monthly-ish series for paid subscribers. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to read the series and other more personal writings I may share here. All other nature-related writings and important news will always be free to read. Paid subscriptions are currently 20% off through August 2025.

Monthly Art

No art from me this month. I’m trying to tap into my creativity by force at this point: I recently bought a pre-drawn scratchboard and a beginner cross-stitch from Michaels to override my long creative drought. I’ll get there somehow. I really did enjoy this exhibit at the Húsavík Whale Museum last month. I took several photos from the art exhibit that was on display there and really appreciated the work put into the exhibit.

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I did not want to get out of bed Sunday morning. We came home from Iceland a week ago with a non-covid virus that morphed into a sinus infection that has since evolved into something that has decided it never wants to leave my body and thus continues to drip snot from my nose and rattle around phlegm in my upper lungs a few times a day when I attempt to hack it out.

NyQuil seems to keep it at bay at night, long enough to let me sleep without feeling like I’m drowning in my own sinus secretions. The downside to that medicine is that you tend to wake up feeling like you slept with a ton of bricks on top of you. Groggy is an understatement.

But awaken I did, because we had a lineup of adventures to maneuver in the Big Thicket. I haven’t done any hiking for the book since mid-June and seeing as I’m coming up on five months left to turn this book in, things are about to get real. I don’t have much left to hike, in all honesty. The downside is that most everything left is in a mosquito haven that I have zero interest in being in at the moment. September can’t come soon enough.

We made a rotation starting at the Lance Rosier Unit of the Big Thicket National Preserve. We did not see any of the orchids featured in this post there, though I have no doubt they exist somewhere—there’s habitat for them out there. The Lance Rosier Unit is for rugged explorers of the Thicket. You will want mud boots, a backpack filled with water and food, and a GPS before you head off into the wilds of that unit. Trails? What trails? Honestly, this kind of exploration is my favorite but not in late July with deer flies, heat index warnings, and a dripping nose. This was a checklist trip. *check, done* The Lance Rosier Unit has been visited. The reality is, I will definitely make another trip to this unit before the book is wrapped up but I needed a cursory visit in order to do my write-up for this section.

Next, we had a short side excursion to visit a population of Asclepias lanceolata, fewflower milkweed, for seeds—not in the Thicket…Top Secret Location. Said Top Secret Location was scorching and out in the open and I regretted agreeing to visit the site almost immediately. I stuck it out but resolved never to return this time of year without a hiking umbrella. Lots of stops for sips of Gatorade were had. My bandana was filthy from snot and sweat by the time all was said and done.

Respite was found in the confines of the truck after, with the a/c blasting as we made our way toward the Big Thicket headquarters and a restroom break before hitting up the Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve for a quick tour. I’m on the board of directors for WRNPP but haven’t been out there since late April or early May. Summer always brings its own chaos and out there was no different. All of the rain we had in spring and early summer brought abundant growth and so many different delights of blooms could be seen from the trails at the preserve.

I haven’t been at the preserve when the Chapman’s fringed orchids were blooming in several years so my sluggish brain woke up when I rounded a corner on the boardwalk and found an orchid in bloom, and then another, and another. And so on down the boardwalk. Chris and I quickly assessed that we absolutely needed to burn further down the boardwalk next fire season than we did this year. The orchids are being choked out by shrubby vegetation. It happens so quickly, too. A year or two without a good burn in a certain area and the shrubs (really, the problem is ti-ti, Cyrilla racemiflora) take hold and start shading everything out.

My time at WRNPP is never long enough. It’s either a volunteer work day or a wildflower walk for a few hours and then lunch in Warren and off to adventures afield in the Thicket, or driving the two hours west back home in Houston. Some day I would like to manage to spend the day and do some plein air painting or reading a book on the cabin’s back porch. If you are interested in seeing the Chapman’s fringed orchids yourself, you can always drop by any time (free!) this week or next for peak blooming but we do have a wildflower walk hosted by orchid botanist and author Joe Liggio this Saturday, August 2nd, at 10:30 am. 527 Co Rd 4777, Warren, TX 77664 Bring a hat and some water!

Finally, after lunch in Woodville, we made our way to our final stop for the day. Thunder rumbled in the distance and the sky grew blue-gray and heavy with rain. The radar showed passing thunderstorms that we managed to dodge before arriving to the plant I’ve been trying to see for a few years now, Platanthera cristata, the crested orange bog orchid.

Several years ago we found leaves and plants in seed at this location while viewing another rare plant in this same habitat. I managed to figure out which orchid species it was and put together the phenology for bloom times, very late July, but could never get my schedule to coincide with a free weekend to come out to see them blooming. This year I made it a priority because I wanted them in my book.

All of the older literature for the Big Thicket refers to so many different rare and uncommon species that have only become even more rare and uncommon since the creation of the BTNP in 1974. Some species were only very rarely seen in some units anyway, not across a wide swath of the region. It’s been tricky to balance what flora and fauna to showcase for each trail/park/tract within the book. I tend toward wanting to share all of the oddball stuff, the things only die-hards are going to want to see. But the reality is that a lot of the common stuff is just as interesting to see to every day hikers.

Summer adventuring in Texas isn’t for many people. Sometimes I don’t even know if it is for me anymore. Summer used to be my favorite season. My all-time favorite season is still winter in south Florida, though. Oh, to be able to make that happen all year long.

While I wait for it to cool off, I’ll take the micro adventures where I can, enjoy the orchids blooming, and donate some blood to the local mosquito and deer fly populations.

And bide my time until goldenrod season. It’s coming!

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Like last summer, we escaped the humid July heat here in Texas for a milder, cooler climate. Instead of going south to the equator and Andes, this time we went northeast and came close to the Arctic Circle. When I looked at the forecast for Iceland a few days before we left all I saw was a week + of rain and 40s and 50s temperatures. Turns out, that’s the default forecast because Iceland is one of those places where the weather does truly change minute by minute, hour by hour. In fact, right before we left I pulled out a pair of fleece lined pants and a heavy long-sleeved Henley and put in a few more t-shirts. I should have done the same with other sweaters because it felt like late March in Texas last week in Iceland. When I unpacked last Sunday afternoon there was a pile of long sleeved shirts I never even touched during the trip. Alas.

This was my first visit to any European or European adjacent country so I knew there would be a bit of a cultural difference compared to traveling to central and south America, which is where all of my international travel has been up until now. Iceland is split by the Eurasian and North American continental plates, hence all of that volcanic activity. Geologically split, culturally European, and yet, something all its own.

And just like last year, I really didn’t want to come back home. Last summer the US was in the middle of a purported assassination attempt and President Biden stepped out of the election race in favor of Kamala Harris. Things were chaotic but somewhat optimistic. This time…well, it was grim.

In Ecuador, there were TVs in the restaurant the hotel we stayed at in Quito and I’m just now realizing I saw zero TVs playing in any restaurant or hotel we visited in Iceland—heaven! I think my son popped on our room TV once to hear some Icelandic chatter and flipped for a few minutes but quickly turned that off. I managed to stay pretty oblivious to any major news coming out of the US unless I saw someone posting it on Instagram. When I left Texas everyone was still focusing on the flooding in central Texas and the tragedy associated with it and by the time I returned I saw that PBS and NPR has been defunded, Angela Paxton had filed for divorce, and you know, I’m sure there’s more but I’m trying not to care.

What I did pay attention to was the stark difference in culture in Iceland compared to the US. Listen, I’m not naïve enough to think that other countries don’t have their own issues but it is fascinating to see the contrast between the US and a small island country in the far North Atlantic. My FYP on Instagram managed to morph into Euro travel accounts at some point during the trip, which was a fun diversion. I think all of us Americans are in agreement that indoor air circulation of some kind is needed in Europe…a fan, please, something. Windows are frequently open during summer months in Iceland, which makes things pleasant, but it isn’t enough for sleeping when the building heats up into a greenhouse during the day. Me, a perimenopausal woman, has a hard enough time sleeping here in the summer in Texas, so I thought, perhaps, I’d be graced with chilly temps to soothe my sleep. That was not the case. At least the pure exhaustion from the jet lag and constantly being on the go let me pass out uninterrupted for 8-9 hours every night. This, despite being in the land of the Midnight Sun, which absolutely made itself known between the edges of the curtain and wall every night.

What struck me most during this trip was how many things were reusable or put in typical, non-disposable containers. I can’t even tell you exactly where we were and what the river’s name is (there doesn’t seem to be one on Google Maps) but even in this one remote location while white water rafting somewhere south of Varmahlíð, when our group took a 15 minute hot chocolate break on the side of the river, the guides pulled from a large plastic drum reusable cups to make the hot chocolate. The boiling hot water was pulled from the side of the river where it was erupting from the earth, merging a few feet away with the glacial river water flowing north towards the Arctic Ocean. Can you imagine reusable mugs being used in this situation in the US?

For the most part there was very little roadside trash and debris. I did see some plastic trapped in barbed wire a few times, mostly coming from old plastic on farms where hay is baled and wrapped for winter storage. Our tour guide made a crack at one point exclaiming, “that’s where marshmallows are grown!” because the white bales of hay absolutely looked like super sized Jet-Puffed mallows! But cans of beer or cigarette wrappers on the roadsides? Non-existent. Even within Reykjavík.

The one thing I was concerned about was the pressure of visitor usage at all of the main natural areas we visited. Most of them are already very well roped or, in some areas, trails paved for access. That said, while there were crowds at most of the waterfalls, it wasn’t nearly as packed as some of our national parks here in the US. If you can make it through a trip to the Smokies or the Grand Canyon, this is a breeze. For a country of about 400,000 people where tourism only became mainstream around 2010, increased tourism will certainly have an impact on pollution and foot traffic in natural areas in the coming years. Perhaps Iceland’s pricier cost of living/tourism will continue to deter rampant tourism in the future but maybe they will just be able to manage it more efficiently than other tourist locales. There’s something to be said for being frozen and dark for a significant portion of the year in your ability to prevent massive throngs of people from overrunning your country.

Another thing Icelanders were really good about is separating out recycling, even in restaurants. There were often multiple bins for non-recyclables, plastic, paper, and then food waste, which is often turned into compost. The ability and desire is there. We could implement the same on a large scale here if we wanted to.

Back in the US, chaos continues to reign. If it isn’t one assault on the environment, it’s another. I know I’ve written multiple times this year about being unable to focus on any of it and that is continuing to stay the same since arriving back home. I thought a bit about this while I was gone, how to bridge this inability to focus and even find any care about it all. The only thing I’m able to do is continue to go hyperlocal. If it doesn’t focus on my book (SE Texas/the Big Thicket) or more broadly Texas (and even then, that seems like a lot), it is going in the Mere Curiosity pile in my brain. Anything more is Too Much and only brings grief. Not that grief isn’t wrapped around the Big Thicket, it is just more tenable.

One thing I would like to figure out is how to bring the culture of caring and support back to the US. Did we ever have that here? I think there are pockets but generally it’s every person for themselves, that rugged individualism we tout. It’s our downfall.

We have choices. It seems the US tends to make really bad ones.

How about all of y’all? How are you holding up in the last six months with this administration? I noticed yesterday that a prominent environmental writer that I looked forward to reading has disappeared from Substack. I find myself skipping over other broader articles about the assaults on agencies and parks and going to writers who are out there poking around in the woods, sharing their flora and fauna finds. It is easier to take in, to be reminded of the “why” behind it all.

Let me know how you are holding up in the comments below or hit reply via email!

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I’ve been thinking about alternate realities lately. Very much a Sliding Doors type situation. If I’d done X then I would have ended up at Y. This could be translated to several points in time in my life that would have changed the trajectory from where I’m at currently to something completely different.

What if I’d stayed in Galveston and not gotten married and moved to Florida?

What if I’d gone to grad school, eventually finishing up a PhD?

What if I’d gotten an art degree instead?

What if we had stayed in Florida?

What if we’d never left Texas to begin with?

What if I’d stuck with field work instead of an office job?

What if I’d started writing earlier (taken it seriously) and stuck with it and was already a published author?

What if, what if, what if?

All of this is moot, of course. Sliding Doors is a movie and we’ve not invented time travel yet, though every time travel story line is generally of the, “Don’t change the past, or at least not enough to affect the outcome of the future,” variety.

This is all to say that I am seriously stuck at the moment. Mid-life is Very Hard.

My family and I went to Rockport the last weekend in May/first weekend in June. I hold a lot of very dear memories close to my heart from childhood going to Rockport and Port Aransas for family vacations. If I lived near my parents I would probably dig out old photos to scan and share here. There were many years we rented a small stilted house on a canal on Key Allegro. The views from the large windows in the living room looked out onto Aransas Bay and let in delicious sunlight in the mornings, with shrimp boats trawling in the foreground many of those mornings. For years there was an empty lot across the street on the bay that was undeveloped and we used that as a sort of beach. The sand was really chunks of oyster shells so it wasn’t the most pleasant to sit on, or even for playing in the water without shoes so you didn’t cut up your feet on the oysters. But it was enough for two kids (my brother and me) to pretend it was the “real ocean” that lay across the bay and beyond San Jose Island. Those little bay days were usually because my parents didn’t want to trek over to Rockport beach or go farther afield and a ferry ride over to Port Aransas. Many times we would have spent hours down at the community pool between those hours on playing in the bay. I wrote a bit about this house a few years ago and I think it will always play a significant role in my memories.

We didn’t drive by Key Allegro on this trip but we did do the drive along the bay front on Fulton Beach Road, where I also reminisced about dinners out with my parents at the Boiling Pot or Charlotte Plummers, or going crabbing on the fishing pier there. A lot has changed over the years. Most of the once empty lots have been developed into homes or short-term rentals. Hurricane Harvey decimated the area in 2017, though you wouldn’t really know it by the way everything has been rebuilt, and how steady the oak mottes continue to exist, shaped by the constant wind coming off the bay.

One afternoon we drove to the backside of Rockport, behind the Aransas county Airport, to Howard Murph Memorial Park. It’s a small wayside with access into Copano Bay, easy access to launch a kayak, have a picnic at the covered tables, or walk out into an oyster bar to fish. Generally, in all of my years visiting Rockport, we’ve bypassed SH 35 in favor of Business 35 for access to and from Rockport, from either direction. We took SH 35 to get to this small park and I was shocked how developed the back portions of this part of the city had become. In my mind, this area is still covered in oak mottes and cattle pastures, which there is still some of that, of course, but the fuzzy images from the 80s that come out of my brain still expect that to be the case.

It’s not. Far from it. And yet, I found myself in the same state of wondering how I could live here, to be close to the dreams of my childhood, the nature of the region, the ease of access to the bays and the Gulf.

The Gulf of Mexico’s water was exceedingly clear that Saturday when we spent a few hours jumping waves in Port Aransas. I walked out to about 4’ deep and could still see my feet, something that is fairly uncommon on the Texas coast, even in this part of the state where waters tend to clear up better than they do closer to the Mississippi. My husband spotted sea turtle after sea turtle, and then fish, and then a shark as he cast his fishing rod out into the waves. I kept missing the sea turtles but trusted and knew they were there patrolling the sargassum mats for fish and crabs. The best I could do were schools of minnows, though my son did manage to see a sea turtle right there close to shore, an event I’m glad he got to experience.

I had an encounter with one once while wading along this same shoreline, probably sometime in my teens. I was jumping waves with my brother, spending hours upon hours doing so, and between one of the waves up popped a sea turtle head sucking down some air before diving back down to continue on its way. I was astonished and probably confused because I was a dolphin girlie and it took a few seconds to realize this wasn’t a freshwater turtle but a sea turtle. A sea turtle popping up off of Port A in the 90s?? Knowing what I know now about sea turtle populations and how much they have struggled and rebounded, some species, in the last 20-30 years, that was probably a rarer occurrence than I realized at the time.

After our beach time we made our way to Packery Channel to walk along the granite boulders that hold the channel open. It’s been a go-to place to look for sea turtle during most trips to Port A and considering the amount of sea turtles my husband saw from the beach, it was bound to be an excellent day on the channel for sea turtles. It didn’t take long before we were rewarded, though patience is always required because sea turtles are quick, especially if they detect you lurking about on shore. Juvenile green sea turtles were in abundance as they trolled the granite and sargassum mats for tasty morsels. My husband managed to spot a Kemp’s ridley, and despite waiting around to see if it would show back up, I never saw it. But the greens were entertaining enough and after some time it was easy to identify individuals themselves based on the number of barnacles on their carapace or flippers. I’d notice one but it would disappear under the water quickly only to be seen again 20-30 feet down another way a few minutes later.

The late afternoon sun was beating down by this time and though I could have sat on a rock for another hour or two just watching the sea turtles come and go, my son had reached his limit and was ready to get back to Port A proper and get the ice cream we’d promised him earlier in the day.

So, we left the sea turtles to continue foraging, my afternoon lingering in the sun and being entertained by these beauties just a memory for another day.

It’s been a while since I began drafting this essay and I’ve lost the point of where I was trying to go, I think. I was lost in memories, lost in feelings, trying to incorporate all of that into what I was experiencing that weekend, what I wanted to hold onto. My summer is very full and I doubt I’ll get another chance to get back to Packery Channel or any Texas beach until late summer or early fall. The sea turtles will still be there, foraging along the channel, perhaps (likely) migrating elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico later in life. Some will succumb to fishing nets, predators, boats, or disease. Others will go on to reproduce, continuing their species on for further generations.

Everything is constantly changing, sometimes more than other times. We’ve made strides in environmental policy in the last 50 years, with steps backward consistently. Changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico won’t alter the fact that many species that call the Gulf home are threatened by overfishing, pollution, and climate change. Rockport sprawling out from the size it was 35 years ago to what it is today is just a symptom of a larger problem everywhere else. We can continue to cling to memories but time marches on and even our most strident environmental policies are only as strong as we want to make them at any given time, during any given presidency. Things we’ve taken for granted as being inevitably protected can be eliminated with the flick of a wrist with an Executive Order or within a fiscal bill in Congress. Gone in the blink of an eye if you aren’t paying attention.

So, yes, the sea turtles will still be there for now, however, they aren’t something to be taken for granted. It wasn’t long ago that there was a huge sea turtle fishery, and in some parts of the world that still exists. Right now, it wouldn’t take much for some industry insider to make that happen once again.

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Summer is now in full swing, for my family at least, and thus I feel like the transition between school/not school is over for now and my brain can settle back into a routine. I know, I know, technically it isn’t summer according to the calendar but Texans and those in the Deep South know summer isn’t a calendar event. I have a lot on my mind to write about and will be getting back to regular writing here as well as publishing my monthly Gratitudes + Delights for paid subscribers.

First up, I’m resurrecting the Lone Star Nature News. The last time I did one was May 2024. Oops. I’ve been gleaning a few different news stories and things that have come across on social media over the last few weeks that I thought were worthwhile to share.

Onward to the news!

1. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission has apparently taken enough heat on their obscenely slow pace of opening new state parks and is now working to start fast-tracking access to newly acquired land before it is truly accessible for camping and more multi-use amenities. All I can say is: it is about damn time! I’d like to think my rants about this here on the newsletter finally hit a nerve with someone who passed it on to the right people but I know I was not the only person in this state grumbling about the problem. At least with this method perhaps we can have off-trail exploration for those with the capabilities or at least guided tours a few times a month to some of these properties. It’s beyond time! (I really want into Davis Hills SNA.)

2. This is an older story from last August (2024), that somehow I missed covering when I wrote Water, Water, (not) Everywhere earlier this year—the City of Houston has become so faulty with water line maintenance in the last decade they’ve lost 32 billion gallons of water due to leaks. Add this to the “Blue Hole” discovery in Dallas in 2023, another Dallas neighborhood complaining of leaking pipes for two years, plus many similar stories, and we have an infrastructure problem on our hands. An article from July 2024 in the Texas Tribune outlines just how big of a problem it is for the state’s major cities: “The cities of Houston and Dallas saw the biggest increase in lost water reported. Houston saw a 30% jump from last year's audit, while Dallas saw an increase of 18%. Houston is the largest populous city in the state, home to roughly 2.3 million Texans; it lost around 31 billion gallons of water last year.”

3. Continuing with the water theme, the Edwards Aquifer continues to head into dire straits. In late May, Bexar County (San Antonio for the non-Texans reading) declared Stage 5 water restrictions. Things are getting pretty bad in central Texas with regard with water shortages and will only continue to get worse as more people move to the highly scenic region and continue to pilfer water from a supply that has been overdrawn for decades, paired with long periods of drought.

4. The flip side to this is that heavy rains the last couple of weeks have allowed Jacobs Well to start flowing again, though there is still no swimming allowed at this scenic Hill Country locale. Sadly, I think it would take a significant shift in mindset for how water is pumped and used in the region for Jacobs Well to return to is historic flow rates, and that goes beyond the drought issues. I don’t know that Texans and our legislature have the fortitude to make this happen, though.

5. Well, looks like we’re going to continue the water theme for news point number 5—do you sense where we are going in this state? DFW’s proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir is still as contentious as ever. “The project would require landowners to sell their property along the Sulphur River in Red River and Titus counties, or see it taken through eminent domain. The reservoir would send most of its water to the booming DFW Metroplex.” Public comments are available for the regional water plan through July 18th here. Wild DFW author Amy Martin sent in a fabulous rebuttal to the DMN’s pro-reservoir editorial recently.

   

6. And lastly, I’m just seeing news via the South Texas Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation via Facebook that the legislature has given control over access and closures to Boca Chica Beach and the highway leading to it to the city of Starbase, aka: SpaceX. Not much in the way of official news is being reported other than one article I found from KURV, which details that the access is being moved from the county to the city. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I’ll end there with the news round-up. If you’ve got any news you’d like to share that I missed, please leave a comment or hit reply to this via email and let me know. I’m going to work to be more diligent about sharing these every 4-6 weeks.

Gratitudes + Delights will be showing up later this week! And next week: sea turtles!

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I’m in the thick of Maycember around here, though it was really AprilMaycember when you pair it with a work project that left me working overtime (something I rarely do) and little brainpower for the last month. I came up for air late last week and thought, “Oh goodie, I get to write again!” However, it has taken me until now to really begin forming thoughts to write here. I did manage to resurrect my garden newsletter, , a few days ago after a year hiatus. It’s a start.

So, excessive work, no brain power, the end of school, and a big end of school at that as my 4th grader is leaving elementary for intermediate next year and we’re hitting a transition period. Cue all-the-feels, as they say. Last time for this, last time for that. In August it will be first time for this, first time for that. Whew!

Where has that left me this last month? I’m still working through the last bits of hiking for my guidebook and so we’ve been hiking and camping and hitting up spots that have been left for last. I’m staring down lands that I wanted to explore more and realizing that what I have is fine and I don’t need to revisit some of these places again, at least for the book. Others I’ve been re-configuring in my mind so I can avoid adding in more hiking to cover them, cough cough, I’m looking at you Lone Star Trail. And of course, the bigger beasts that are left are either trails that are longer or have been inaccessible due to closures (staring at you oh, wait, it looks like the Big Sandy Trail is finally open again! Wahoo!), or trails that are likely to be underwater due to spring rains (and/or swarmed with mosquitoes) like the couple of trails I have left in the Trinity NWR.

I’ll get there but it is time to get cracking on the writing and map making around here.

I’ll be honest, I have almost completely shut myself off from updates on the environmental catastrophe that is this federal administration. I see things that are posted on social media but I have stopped calling and writing and interacting with it in any major capacity. I feel like I really put myself out there in 2023 with Fairfield Lake State Park and gained absolutely nothing by it. I’m not saying advocacy isn’t effective, it certainly is, but it is so long term that I’ve had to pull back and let others lead where I cannot. I thought I might be able to cover every assault here on the newsletter, like I did back then, but I’ve been unable to bring myself do it because of how relentless it has been. That, and this is basically a hobby, writing here, and while I have a few paid subscribers, this doesn’t pay my bills, like say, if I was instead doing advocacy work for any of the major environmental orgs out there, who put out press releases and go to events and do the Big Work. It might be worth the stress if that was the case. I’m still working through this, how to balance advocacy writing with natural history writing.

I think what kills me most, and my husband will attest to this after I almost lost my shit a few weeks ago while we were having a most chill time at the beach—I was reading Texas Land Ethics, something I’ve been slow reading for the last year, and had reached the last chapter about the Big Thicket and wanted to just walk into the Gulf of Mexico and never return—was how much effort has been involved in getting us to the point where we are at now for conservation and even the small hint of a positive environmental legacy and we’re just out there throwing it away for “nothing” (profits). I was sitting there as the waves rhythmically rolled onto shore reading about how long it took to even get the Big Thicket protected in the first place: the petitions, the meetings with congressional representatives, the negotiations with timber companies, the personal sacrifice many of the advocates took on to protect something they loved so much…and here we were facing the potential for the NPS to just start offloading some of their non “Park” lands to states or private entities because of the current administration. The fact that the Big Thicket, a “Preserve”, might end up on the chopping block because it wasn’t a “Park”, well, yeah, I took a walk down the beach to gather my thoughts because short of going to one of those rage rooms I keep hearing about, there’s not much I can do other than constantly write representatives who plainly do not care.

I mean, yes, the reality is civil disobedience, but I think we all have to figure out what we’re willing to do and sacrifice on that end and I’ve not worked that part out yet. Or, that we arrived to that destination in the course of things. But, I think it is coming.

What I’m doing instead of paying attention to the attack on our environment is appreciating what is in front of me. Many beautiful things still exist right here, right now. We’re often the only ones out exploring some of these areas and I find myself being thankful for that, the quiet ability to explore on our own and appreciate these places for what they are, but also despondent that so few people know what is in their own backyards.

I came across the alligator snapping turtle a few photos above on the Saturday before Mother’s Day, and I was the only one of the three of us (my husband, son, and myself) who got to see it. My son and husband were down at another part of the creek and I had walked down to this small tributary to look for the rare plant we were trying to locate. I was contemplating how to jump across the creek and out of the corner of my eye I thought I could leverage myself across with whatever it was in the creek. I thought it was a piece of trash or an old culvert but when I turned to really focus in on it I saw the object for what it really was and stood there astounded for a few seconds!

I come across snappers, common or alligator, so rarely that this was a really special moment, particularly because we were so close to a road. I thought about texting my husband but we’d had cell service issues at the previous location we were at on this same creek, and so instead of digging my phone out of my pocket to text, I opted to try to yell a bit so I could get their attention. That wasn’t the smartest thing because Chonky realized they’d been made by the Scary Human and started doing a three-point-turn to escape to deeper water. By the time my husband and son made it over to the bridge to look down and see what I was calling about, Chonky had vanished into the dark tannin waters of the creek. May you live a long life, friend.

As any die-hard naturalist, I often get excited about finding a species that has long been on my list to see. While we did not even up locating the plant species we were hoping to find on this particular creek that weekend, I did end up finding Clematis reticulata arenicola (see note under photo, taxon change), netleaf leather flower, and did a little dance of joy when I realized what I was seeing. I often file away plant species in the back of my brain to look for when I’m in particular regions and hope that some day I’ll end up coming across it when I’m there. It wasn’t even on my radar that I might come across it that day so it was a delightful surprise! With only 136 observations on iNaturalist in Texas, this is not a super common species here, though certainly not the most uncommon. It’s all about the right habitat and timing.

If you want to talk about things that grow under people’s noses, we can talk all day about mosses and liverworts and other non-vascular plants. I’m slowly learning both of them and if I ever get around to dedicating time to microscopy, maybe I would actually get better about identification of them to species. Until such time, I mostly use my macro lens attachment on my phone to take photos and upload them to iNaturalist for later identification by myself or someone more knowledgeable. I’m always struck by how many species you can find on any given tree in some locations. Life on top of life on top of life! I mean, just in that photo above there is the liverwort, either another liverwort or moss on the left, a lichen beneath those, plus the tree itself!

I’ll end with this last photo because I don’t know how to encapsulate it into words. This is the Jack Gore Baygall Unit of the Big Thicket and well, it’s a unit you need to explore by water during certain times of the year, such as now when the Neches is high and back channels and bottoms are full to the brim. I love swamps and wetlands to an extent that I don’t think there are many others on the list who would join me in that love. Perhaps that’s why I adore them, very few people are out there. Forget Angels Landing. Give me a remote oxbow in a cypress-tupelo swamp. Let me hear a pileated woodpecker pounding on a dead stump, echoing across the swamp.

That’s all I need—and for it to be protected in perpetuity from development.

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While some of the challenges before us have changed, our responsibilities are the same today as those recognized 20 years ago. As a nation, we must acknowledge that our environment and economy are interdependent. We must also go beyond the traditional regulatory role of government and continue to seek solutions that embrace all sectors of society in preventing pollution and ecological damage before they occur.

The first Earth Day helped increase dramatically public awareness of ecological issues. Across the country, millions of people rallied to express their concerns about pollution and to learn how they could help clean up and protect the environment. Thanks to the educational programs and volunteer programs established since then, many Americans now are more faithful stewards of our precious natural resources.

Today the United States is a leader in environmental protection. We have made important progress toward improving air quality through enforcement of the Clean Air Act, the phasing out of leaded gasoline, and more stringent fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. We have expanded our parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas. We have made major advances in protecting our lakes, rivers, and streams; and we have begun to clean up once-neglected toxic waste sites. The United States has also been a leader in the worldwide effort to study and address global climate change. Through our participation in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we are working to promote environmental safeguards not only at home but also abroad. - George H.W. Bush, Proclamation 6085 - Earth Day, 1990.

I have struggled mightily these last few months to write about the on-going undoing of our environmental legacy here in the United States. It is very painful for me, and I’ve seen others trying to grapple with the pain as well. I’ve mostly been avoiding the worst bits of news, though it is a necrosis that is slowly killing everything around it and it is impossible to truly ignore.

And here I am, quoting Republican George H.W. Bush, 41st President of the United States about Earth Day.

Can you see how far we’ve fallen?

In 35 years we’ve gone from a representative of supposedly the same political party in office today touting our commitments as a country to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (albeit with some heavy private sector undertones), to the dismantling and destruction of our nation’s foremost environmental protection agencies with the flick of a pen in an Executive Order. Despite pleas and calls to elected congressional officials, who have in the past been critical about the past/current Trump administration, all of the destruction continues.

Personally and professionally, this is showing up in my own life. Agency officials I or others in my office have worked with for years are taking buyouts and early retirements, often leaving projects in a lurch while they are handed off to other overburdened federal employees. People I know who have been working at Dream Jobs for federal agencies are faced with taking the buyouts or be fired in a few months, or were fired back in February with the first round of farcical cuts.

Everywhere you turn something environmental is on the chopping block.

Sharing calls for action and ideas for activism has felt very trite to me. I shouted for four years to anyone who would listen and shouted again here in Texas to save Fairfield Lake State Park and look where that got us. I realize this is a long-haul situation and yet, we haven’t been here before. Sure, we’ve been at the beginning where we took no cares and pillaged the land, and there have always been adjustments to regulations during different presidential administrations, but this? This is entirely new. This isn’t a hand wave to absolve something, to say it’s temporary and it’ll be fine in four years. I cynically laugh at how many environmental and naturalist folks I followed on Instagram got excited about RFK Jr and how his past environmental policies might sway the current administration. How’d that work out for ya?

It was always smoke and mirrors.

So, now we have propositions to roll back what constitutes harm with regard to endangered species, that destroying habitat that a species relies upon isn’t harm because it isn’t an outright act of killing or maiming. Oh yeah, that endangered orchid is going to thrive so hard when you drain the wetland it grows in! Bald eagles are gonna love having their nests destroyed because a developer logged the trees they built their nests in. Migratory birds such as whooping cranes that rely upon extensive wetlands are gonna love having them filled and turned into developments.

Passenger pigeons were numerous until they weren’t.

You cannot undo development in habitat, whether it is for critical species or not. Once it is gone, it is gone. One thing I have to hit home again and again with many folks is that just because they see “green” they cannot automatically think it is habitat for wildlife. Sure, some of the more wide-ranging species can make a living in suburban backyards and urban woodlots as much as they thrive in a many thousand acre tract of undeveloped land, but many, if not most, species simply cannot. Habitat conversion is a far more critically important issue than many give it credit for. It leads the way to other things like pollution runoff, increased traffic and roadkill deaths, wildlife loss due to pets and home pesticide/herbicide poisonings, and habitat conversion in the form of horticultural and invasive species plantings. A lawn of Bermuda or St. Augustine with few foundation plantings is nothing compared to the hardwood forest or bluestem/mixed-grass prairie that may have existed before development, or heck even the converted pasture it may have been. And you certainly lose massive amounts of water storage seeping into the ground when you cover everything in pavement, which increases risks for flooding in areas previously unknown for that to happen.

“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

Rachel Carson did not live long enough to see her endless campaigns as an environmentalist and conservationist come to fruition in the 1970s with the influx of environmental regulations coming out of, again, a Republican administration. Though many have followed in her footsteps around the country to continue to pursue the tireless advocacy needed to see these regulations and protections placed, it has been an ever constant battle to see them enforced and expanded to the capacity needed in the face of revolving/evolving threats. Unfortunately this is a long haul situation. It always has been.

We have to keep writing and keep advocating. We have to talk to friends and family about what is going on and why it matters. Clean drinking water is important! You don’t have to bring up sensitive endangered species topics to your grandfather who is a hunter but I’m willing to bet he probably likes having drinking water that isn’t full of pollutants. It is also hard to make a change or even change an opinion when you don’t even know the information at hand—you don’t know what you don’t know. This is why conversations are still important, even if they are hard. And trust me, I am the last person to be telling anyone this because I have a difficult time with it myself.

There will be losses, significant ones I suspect. And they are going to hurt like hell.

But we have to keep going, keep celebrating Earth Day, and carry into the future the hope that we can someday arrive at the destination that Rachel Carson wrote about in Silent Spring.

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The last few nights I’ve turned to an adult coloring book and a box of Kuretake Zig markers that I’d been saving for a “special occasion” or “the right art project”, pressed play on an audiobook or my favorite playlist, and colored for several hours in the evening. I got the idea from an internet acquaintance who recently posted about cozy hobbies she did and I couldn’t get over the fact that, of course, coloring was the answer.

I cannot focus on anything right now. Make original art? Requires thinking. Write? Requires thinking. Reading? Requires monotasking and my brain is incapable of that or the other option is just to fall asleep as I’m reading. Even editing photos is too difficult of a task for me and that’s pretty easy! I get to sort through the photos of beautiful plants and scenes I’ve comes across, which sounds delightful and is, but it’s the sheer volume of photos I take that suddenly becomes daunting.

Everything feels difficult.

So, I turned to coloring. I’m doing something and also keeping my brain entertained while listening to music or an audiobook (currently: The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende) and then my brain is soothed and isn’t thinking of the many tasks I need to do or the deep doom of the state of the world. I’ve typically used colored pencils when I’ve sporadically colored in the handful of books I have for this activity, but I reached for the Zigs and have been rewarded. Some of the pens have ink that isn’t quite as juicy and they scratch the paper in a way that is irksome. Others have ink that flows out in such a way that is so satisfying that I want to wrap up the feeling and keep it for when I need something to calm my brain. The world is ending? I’ll dredge up the feeling of how the magenta-purple flowed onto the paper as I filled in the outlines of a peony.

All of this is to say, I’m really stuck right now. I’m getting by with regularly riding my bike around the neighborhood after a few years off from doing that, and by gardening, and apparently now, by coloring. I’m still hiking almost every weekend so I can to wrap up trails and parks for my book and I’m getting closer to the end. The one thing about being closer to the end is that I feel like I still don’t know enough about the Big Thicket, and I mean that in more of an intimate sense—I’ve been hiking but haven’t spent years and seasons knowing the ins and outs of what happens in each of these places I’m attempting to showcase to y’all. I am noticing how varied the various tracts are and delight in getting a sense in how habitat changes from place to place. I have a pile of reading I need to do, which is why I’m trying to get my brain back. Never mind the actual writing and map making that needs to happen. Ah, to be one of those privileged male writers of yesteryear (or current year in some cases) who shut themselves off in a room and had a wife or maid or *insert any woman* who fed them, kept the kids entertained, and sometimes paid the bills. Alas, I am not any of those men but plenty of women have built writing empires in between the jobs, kids, marriages, friends, hobbies, and even societal collapse, so I guess I can too! This is just to say, the struggle is real and we’re all out there trying to make it through. Sometimes we have to pause and do other things for a while.

You know what is the worst thing about all of this?

I gave myself the BEST BOOK IDEA on Monday. I’m not even going to talk about it because I do not have time to deal with it right now and already have a half finished novel and at least one memoir I am trying to write in addition to this current contracted book, and meanwhile I’m spending my time coloring right now, so…*throws hands in the air*, ahhhhhh!

However, I’m pretty sure I’m going to turn it into a book proposal this fall. It needs to marinate for a bit. In Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, I learned not to let ideas go or someone else will catch them and make them their own. I was shown how accurate this was a few weeks ago when I saw that Austin gardener and garden writer Pam Penick had a new book coming out soon called Gardens of Texas: Visions of Resilience from the Lone Star State and it killed me because I wanted to write that book about five years ago. I’d been inspired by some fairly spectacular native plant/gardening landscape books from other regions of the country and always felt like Texas got the shaft because we fit into so many different types of regions. Yes, sometimes a Texas garden would appear in these books but it was almost an afterthought. I even wrote the book idea down in my always growing list of things I’d like to write, gave some thought to a few gardeners I could pitch to be in the proposal and seriously contemplated it. But I knew it would be difficult to pull off and tabled it. While I’m not the creator of this book, I’m really glad that Pam did it and it couldn’t have been done by a more competent writer with the capacity to accomplish such a breathtaking book (my judgement based off of the few images on the publisher’s website—now I need to look for an ARC).

Right now maybe my brain can’t tackle the state of the environmental world, from the “resurrection” of long extinct species when we can’t even adequately protect our current endangered species to the implications of executive orders to log our national forests, but I can at least work out some of the kinks in the knots of these issues in my brain while I’m quietly coloring inside the lines. Eventually I’ll be able to draw outside the lines, to create for myself again, and to weave together the thoughts and feelings I have about everything that is happening right now.

It might take a few more coloring pages, though.

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Gratitudes + Delights is a monthly-ish series for paid subscribers. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to read the series and other more personal writings I may share here. All other nature-related writings and important news will always be free to read.

Monthly Art

Right now I’m pulling out pieces of art I’ve made in years’ prior to share here but my goal with this series is to create new pieces. It will force me to have pretty things to post but also to actually take the time to make art.

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