Surprise visit!

Blanco seventh graders from the middle school recently stopped by to see our Texas Wildscape.

I was working at my desk yesterday when I heard a LOT of voices outside. I peeked out a window and saw a bunch of kids walking along the street in front of our house. One of them was my young neighbor friend, Peyton. And he was running toward our front door! I dashed down the hall and threw open the door before he could knock. 

"Miss Sheryl! Will you come out and talk to our class?" he exclaimed. He's in the seventh grade, and his entire class filled a chunk of the street.

Sure, I said. I was thrilled!

Pam, their science teacher (she taught both my kids), visited our Wildscape several weeks ago because she wants to bring students over to tour our yard. Yesterday, she apologized for the short notice. "We're on our way back from the state park, and I thought we'd come this way so they could see your yard," she explained. 

I didn't mind! I love to share about native plants and wildlife in our Wildscape. I talked about the prairie verbena blooming and a few of the other plants in our front beds. Then I remembered about the mother wolf spider I still had in the house (previous post). So I ran inside and carefully carried her back outside. Everyone got to look at her before they headed back to school.

Come on back any time!

Spider mom

Yesterday, I met this wolf spider lady in our garage. She was two thirds up the inside of our back garage door. Right away, I noticed that her abdomen was bumpy. Kiddos! I took a few photos. Then I decided I'd better move her to a safer place because I noticed her slip a few times. She didn't have a whole lot of spiderlings on her backside. In the beginning, though, she would have. That's what this species does. Female wolf spiders carry their egg sacs around with them, using their spinnerets. After growing from embryos into spiderlings, they break out and scramble onto her back. There they stay. The ones that don't fall off, that is, or get eaten by someone else. That's why there's only a few left on this mother, and they're the biggest wolf spiderlings I've ever seen still with their mom.

I nudged her onto a blue plastic lid and took a few more photos. Then I set everyone inside a larger container. I wanted to show James before I let them go. After he got home and peeked, then I set the family outside beneath a lawn mower. I checked back later in the day, and the spider mother was still there. After her children disperse, she may live a while longer, then die. The cycle of life!

Blown-up inset from photo above

Blown-up inset from photo above

Scads of prairie verbena

James and I agree. We've NEVER seen the prairie verbena bloom as prolifically as it's doing this spring. The purple blankets nearly the entire Meadow. These two photos just don't do the scene justice. I wish you could bop over and see how truly beautiful they are. 

Giant leopard moth

Giant leopard moth (Hypercompe scribonia)...James spotted it on a twistleaf yucca.

I nominate *#@%# cabbage

State Highway 87 east of San Angelo

Yes, I hereby nominate Rapistrum rugosum, otherwise known as BASTARD CABBAGE, as our official state invasive plant. Bluebonnets? In a few years, we won't have a state flower any more. Because the BASTARD CABBAGE and other invasive plants will push them out of our native habitats.

I shouldn't be so flippant because this is serious, Texans. This stuff is EVERYWHERE. Enroute home last week from San Angelo, I photographed colonies that are overrunning highway right-of-ways southeast of San Angelo. We also saw it growing west of Eden. Here in Blanco County, it's awful east and west of town. Scary!

Looking across State Highway 87 at the cabbage-filled median.

I spotted a few winecups, but the bastard cabbage (background) will likely wipe them out soon.

West of Blanco, bastard cabbage engulfs an entire pasture along RR 1623.

You can barely see some black cattle in the top right quadrant of this photo.

When I stepped out of our car, I found hundreds of  young Malta star-thistles, the invasive we've been fighting in our Wildscape. It's not as easy to spot when you're driving past.

I head someone comment, "Oh, those yellow flowers along the highway? They're pretty!" NOT!

I found this interesting news report from last April, "Bastard cabbage under fire from state." After watching it, I emailed both Damon Waitt, a senior director and botanist the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and Dennis Markwardt, vegetation manager with the Texas Department of Transportation, to ask what they forecast this spring regarding the invasive.  

"I'm not seeing as much bastard cabbage as last year," Dr. Waitt wrote back. "I think the low rainfall last September-October had the same effect on bastard cabbage as it does on our Texas wildflowers. Malta star thistle seems to be on the increase in Texas."

No reply yet from Mr. Markwardt.

Happy birthday to me!

Last Friday, I celebrated yet another birthday (every year's a gift!). So I'm Fifty-Again. For the fourth time. I had so much turning 50, that I do it again every year. I requested a day trip to Medina to visit Natives of Texas, a Hill Country native plant nursery owned by David Winningham. His late wife, Betty, established the business originally. The main reason I wanted to go was to purchase a Blanco crabapple tree, which is indigenous to our area. Mission accomplished! It was a GREAT day! My mother came along, too. As you see above, I came home with a CROWD of new green friends to plant... 

  

 

A Blanco crabapple grows at the nursery.

My mother, Marcelle, and me.

I had to get a shot of the bluebonnets.

After our nursery visit, we had BLTs and a burger for lunch at Love Creek Orchards in Medina. Mom bought us two slices of apple pie to take home. Then we headed to a new-to-me native nursery, one I'd run across while on the Internet–Medina Garden Nursery. There we met partners Ernesto Carino and Ysmael Espinoza. Oh, my, Ysmael is PASSIONATE (like me) about protecting and perpetuating Texas native plants! Both he and Ernesto are VERY knowledgable, too. Two hours there just zipped by!

Ysmael gave us a great tour of their nursery.

They live on site so visitors can tour their home gardens, too.

BLISS...I'm among friends.

My husband James, Ysmael and Mom

Ernesto, me, Ysmael and Mom

My new friends from Native of Texas: one (5-gallon) Blanco crabapple, three Texas betony, two golden groundsel, one scarlet clematis and two square-bud primroses. 

From Medina Garden Nursery: two brownfoot, three Lindheimer's morning-glory, one Texas barberry (with a winecup and two tiny cedar elms aboard) and one fragrant honeysuckle (not a native but one of Ysmael's favorites for pollinators). 

"Nurturing nature"

My feature article, "Nurturing Nature," just came out in the April 2013 issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

Thanks for the nice photo, Earl!