Photo: This is not a lake, but is instead a normally dry pasture covered with fourteen inches of rain from Hurricane Harvey. Last August Hurricane Harvey tarried around for a while and caused significant damage to our roof and the front of our house. The front was added in the 1950s to a house ... Read More
weather
Coleto Creek Collecting Trip – December 21, 2017.
Photo by Anne Rokyta: Coleto Creek at US Highway 77 with German Shepherds, Oso and Maya. December 21, 2017 was warm, an occurrence happening more and more frequently lately. The weather was sunny, and temperatures hovered around 80°F (~27°C). It was a perfect first day of winter for ... Read More
Texas Weather – December 2017
Winter wonderland early morning December 8, 2017. Texas weather, especially winter weather, can be highly variable. This December illustrates that. Tuesday, December 5, 2017 It was a warm day. As Susie and I walked from the house to the greenhouses I almost stepped on a coral snake ... Read More
Hurricane Harvey Recovery – September 12th
Photo of damage to the interior and exterior of one of our greenhouses. Before I launch into what we’ve been doing since we finally got commercial power, I need to thank my brother-in-law, Danny Rokyta. Danny came over the day before Harvey hit to make sure Carl and I had properly installed our ... Read More
Copperhead Eating Lizard
Photo: by Ky Harkey of a copperhead feasting on a green anole lizard. About this time of the year our copperheads (Agkistrodon contortrix) switch from cruising around in the evening and early night for emerging cicadas and June bugs to climbing into shrubs to feed on green anoles (Anolis ... Read More
Winter in South Texas
Photo: Geranium (actually genus Pelargonium) after winter in South Texas. Winter in our area continues to become milder. When I was a child, several decades ago, we had winters with real freezes, several of them a year. (By the way, when did we quit capitalizing seasons and directions?) A typical ... Read More
Gambusia Road Trip – Day 3
Photo: Charles, William and Stephanie viewing tanks holding endangered fish species. Day three started off a bit better than day two, but overnight it became painfully obvious one heater wasn’t enough. The heater had been set up at Cara’s end of the camper, and it kept half her roof ... Read More
Gambusia Road Trip – Day 2
Day two started off badly. First, we discovered that temperatures around 25°F with no heater made for a very cold night. Also, with no heat, the moist breaths of two humans and four dogs condensed on the canvas roof of the camper causing a steady rain of cold water. Cara had taken the back bed. I ... Read More
Frozen in Balmorhea State Park
In January, one of my daughters and I made a trip around west Texas and southeastern New Mexico looking at rare Gambusia. One of these was G. nobilis an endangered fish. One of its homes is San Salomon Springs at Balmorhea State Park at Toyahville, Texas. While at the park we tried to photograph ... Read More
Resurrection Palm
The title of this post is misleading since it’s really about a cycad not a palm, but most people don’t know the difference and cycads do look like palms. The particular cycad in question is probably in the genus Dioon, but we don’t know which species. I got this plant in 1975 having rescued it ... Read More