September 2019 – Nature Along the El Camino Real

Invasive or Inviting: The Wild Morning Glory

September 22, 2019September 22, 2019 Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall2 Comments

By Larry Kocian. Adopted from a Facebook post on Milam County Veggie and Plant Exchange, September 22, 2019.

Free from nature, these vines (also known as tie vine —Impomoea cordatotriloba) make an appearance in late spring, early summer. In mid- to late summer and into autumn, they are showy with their purple/lavender colors.

Tie vine is just as pretty as hybrid morning glories, just with smaller blossoms.

Some people say invasive. I say not, because they are easily controlled by going into the garden and removing/sculpting them. I let mine climb, and they do climb into the mimosa trees. I do control some when they wrap in the wrong place or too much on a particular plant/tree.

My point is that most natural occurring plants that are labeled invasive are not at all. I always encourage everyone who reads this to go outside and get to know your garden. It’s very therapeutic.

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Mystery of the Fuzzy Mat Plant

September 15, 2019 Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

Since this post features one of our members, I thought I would share it here, too – Sue Ann

The Hermits' Rest

Sometimes you see something so often that you forget it is interesting. That’s the case for a weird plant I’ve been seeing on our driveway ever since we built it. It always looked like bits of cotton had gotten into one of the usual spurges that line our driveway.

Here’s the plant from a distance. You can barely distinguish it from the road base.

I finally got it into my head to take a photo of it an upload it to iNaturalist, so I could figure out what it was. I took the photo on our cutting board, hoping for better contrast.

Well, that didn’t go well at all. The plant simply does NOT photograph well, and the recognition algorithms couldn’t figure out what the thing was at all. It was guessing owls and such. I tried for a better photo, but didn’t get much further.

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Keyhole Gardens: September 2019 Chapter Meeting

September 15, 2019September 15, 2019 Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall3 Comments

by Sue Ann Kendall

We had a large turnout for this month’s meeting, where Linda Friedrickson and Aloma Clayton spoke on keyhole gardening (modified raised bed). They are members of the Little River Basin Master Gardeners, so many of our members who are in both organizations already knew them. Both of these women have lots of knowledge about keyhole gardens, and Linda even built one this year at her new property.

The book to read if you want to learn more is Soiled Rotten, by Deb Tolman, who is a fascinating person currently living in Texas and basing her life on creative recycling and reuse. Linda pointed out that keyhole gardens are a perfect example of Tolman’s philosophy, because you can build then from discarded material. Tolman makes gardens out of all sorts of things, including an abandoned speedboat.

Aloma and Linda appreciating their speaker gifts.

History

Aloma started the presentation all off by giving us the history of keyhole gardens.

They started in southern and eastern Africa, because trees were all gone and the soil depleted from years of mismanagement. It was a mess. Africans starved while we wasted our food.

Mahaha Mafou (not sure of spelling) in Lesotho (luh-soo-too) invented keyhole gardens to feed her family. She made hers from rocks with characteristic shape. They were popularized by CARE (an NGO) and USAID (US government), who helped spread it. They did this throughout the 1980s and on. It spread throughout eastern and southern Africa.

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Observations of the Bird Station During a Summer Visit

September 9, 2019September 12, 2019 Sue Ann (Suna) KendallLeave a comment

from the notebook of Ann Collins

August, 2019

Our chapter mascot shows up on my property.

The Bird Station is an important component for my wildlife exemption. Plus its just a great place to enjoy the woods and the wildlife.

Since there are lots of ferns, I feel I must water often. It gets a couple of hours of water about every four days. It’s very hot and there’s no rain at all!

When the August temperature gets to 100 degrees, plants simply cook; they just about curl up and die or go dormant.

Every year I plant more and more ferns. This year I want to plant some flowering trees, red bud, camellias, and maybe a few azaleas. I can’t help myself!

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Snake Mystery!

September 8, 2019 Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall2 Comments

I just wanted to share with you all the interesting thing I found while driving down County Road 140 this week. That’s the road that Fannin/Ballpark Road becomes when it crossed 485 in Cameron. I drive there every day, since our ranch is just the other side of Walker’s Creek, for those of you who know the area.

I saw it Thursday when I was driving home, but was too tired to stop. Then I kept forgetting to pull over. Finally, yesterday when I was in no hurry whatsoever, my friend and I pulled over to investigate.

Still life with snake skeleton, cow patty, and snow-on-the-prairie.

It’s a rattlesnake, judging from the size, and missing its head. My teen companion who had on better shoes looked around for evidence of the head, but found none.

From the way it’s draped, we figure someone put it on the fence as a warning. I used to see (much bigger) rattlesnakes draped over fences when I was a little girl in central Florida. When they’d build new neighborhoods, construction workers would have to be really careful of them. My dad said they put them on the fences as a warning. Other people I’ve talked to say they’ve seen coyotes like that. Ugh.

The thing is, I used to see entire snakes, not skeletons. Where did the rest of it go? Did someone skin it first? How did the vultures, or whoever it was, get all the meat off and just leave the bones just as they were?

Extreme close-up. It’s pretty darned clean.

Do any of you Master Naturalist friends have any ideas? Please share!

PS: I’d love to blog about YOUR nature sights and finds. Send them to Suna by email, photo, text, or piece of paper. I’ll blog them! To prove it, the next one came from a photo of a piece of paper!