Uncharted wilderness, not exactly

The chart is in the Resources section of the right side bar. Today we began exploring the Oak Point North Trail Extension that looks like a little green worm:

That was a round-trip walk of 1.5 miles on a wide paved surface popular with bicyclists. It goes from the big circle parking lot by the new Parks & Rec headquarters under Jupiter Road and over to a residential neighborhood. Most of it is shadeless, but everything is a lush green after all our rain. It crosses Rowlett Creek, and has one shady picnic table.

Crossing Rowlett Creek

It also has a nice, soggy meadow right now with big tadpoles and groovy invertebrates.

Plus, I got to sport my Great American Cleanup shirt;

Better than a selfie!

© 2014-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

If I had a camera

Striking moth 2014

Going through a difficult time. A camera will get you through times with no money better than money will get you through times with no camera. Trails dry enough to walk, and time to walk them would be nice.

My camera is on a journey to a repair shop somewhere on Earth, and will maybe return in mid-May. Withdrawal isn't pretty.

     

Buckeye butterfly 2013

Through the spider web 2013

Splendid skink 2014

If I had a camera I'd use it in the morning, I'd use it in the evening, all over this land. The barn swallows start singing at 4:40 a.m. on the railing outside my front door. It's their launch site for amazing aerial acrobatics that would make Tom Cruise puke in his boots.



If I had a camera I'd be out at Oak Point, but we will have to roll the highlight reels of This Week in Oak Point History instead!

© 2014-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Snakes awake at Oak Point

Haven't spotted one yet, but I know they are there. They aren't after me like the velociraptors in the kitchen. I can count on one hand my actual sightings of snakes at Oak Point.

5/30/2012 near the Oak Point pavilion

I used to meet a fellow with his dog so often on Willow Springs Trail we would chat about flicker nesting locations. Hikers aren't usually looking for conversation. Most often they are enjoying an anonymous, solitary, speechless interaction with nature. The flicker fellow was the one who taught me the mantra, "Snakes awake in April". I never saw him again after that.

Lately I keep running into a nice woman with a funny mud-colored dog named Java. At a certain point it becomes awkward. I visit the park as a meditation, an exercise in mindfulness, a practice of observation, and for a bit of physical fitness. Sometimes I'm collecting litter to rid the park of ugly styrofoam. Other times I'm taking photos to refuel my creative spirit.

 Caddo Trail copperhead 10/28/2011

Now that the brontosaurus has been readmitted to the science club, we can hope for the return of little planet Pluto. Fear of thunder is high on the list of common "issues", but public speaking is much more terrifying than thunder lizards, spiders, snakes, or death. What do we fear?

I fear being unable to pronounce the fear of snakes, ophidiophobia. It reminds me of the song about Lydia the Tattooed Lady. I fear focusing on the skink on the trunk and not noticing the snake in the leaves.

ophidiophobia (n.) 

1914, "excessive fear of snakes or reptiles," from ophidio- apparently extracted from Modern Latin ophidia, a word coined arbitrarily (to provide an -ia form to serve as an order name in taxonomy) from Greek ophis"serpent" (see ophio-) + -phobia.

BDS 3/20/2012

This is a BDS atop some reeds in the lake. Once I saw a BDS on the fishing pier. Big Dang Snakes are interesting from a distance!

Thanks for this opportunity to play with Recs and Parks, Groucho Marx, dogs and barks, 

Snake skin and jelly fungus 10/08/2012

© 2014-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Like white is to rice OR when wildflowers wear hoodies the aliens have landed

Caddo Trail April 3, 2015

It's April and the trails are lined with these wonderful, confusing wildflowers! I'm grateful my "wildflower colors" program for early childhood next weekend can stick with colors and not worry much about identification. Every spring I try to sort it out, and every spring I fail.

These are not the earliest white flowers in the woods. Those are skinnier and more prolific, but they do not wear hoodies. These are not the smelly relatives of onion and garlic that look like aliens from a primitive Sixties tv show either. Danger, Will Robinson!

Debra wrote a post trying to sort out crow poison, allium, and star-of-bethlehem. So close in appearance--how close? Like white is to rice, Stevie Ray.

Every spring the flowers pictured below dot the slope of Rustic Park and smell strongly of onions. They seem out of this world, but are the beginnings of soups and stews and primitive earthy foods. Looks can be deceiving.

 

Thank heaven for easier IDs like fleabane daisies.

© 2014-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Plié and up. Relevé and down.

Someone had a brilliant idea, and I'd like to thank them. This beauty was installed at the end/beginning of Red Bud Trail near the dam. The hand rail lets one get extra oomph into the boot-scraping effort, plus I can practice my ballet barre work while watching turtles in the lake.

Scrape off that mud!

© 2014-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Question Mark questions

I saw several Question Marks on my walk, and they were all looking the worse for wear. What have they been doing all winter?

April 3, 2015 Caddo Trail

Pulled out one of my favorite butterfly books, The Life Cycles of Butterflies, by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards.  By the way, it's a very family friendly book. Turns out:

Question Marks emerge from their chrysalises in the fall and spend the winter as inactive adults, hiding in woodpiles or under loose tree bark until spring. 

November 3, 2013 Rowlett Creek Trail

I know plenty of inactive adults who wouldn't mind this lifestyle if they could check out library books. Question Marks perch "head down on the side of a tree trunk", which would be difficult for the inactive adults I know.

What does a Question Mark look like on a good day, after a mani-pedi?

These photos were taken on the Spring Creek Trail in Richardson (trail parking at 75 & Renner) April 10, 2012. The Question Marks look much fresher, so they must be a new generation:

  

 © 2014-2015 Nancy L. Ruder