Thoughts on the Mother's Day weekend hikes

"How did these trees start being called cedar?", she asked, referring to the ashe juniper.

I love questions.  Part of my enjoyment of the public hikes is listening to their questions.  Good questions usually beget good answers.

We had begun walking again when this woman asked the question, and I couldn't hear Nancy's response.  And I'd like to know!

***

I've studied a lot of geology, and when you know a lot about something, it's harder to decide what to say in a 1 minute summary.  I've been thinking about how I want to tell the story of limestone, since there are always many ways to tell a story.

I like that Nancy stops and talks about it at the first top of trail 3 - that she introduces it with "this is usually under our feet, but here it's exposed".  It's important, I think, for visitors to see or hear the thing we're talking about.  Otherwise, why actually be there? We could all sit around some beers and talk about it instead.

So - my limestone story begins to be explored:  Limestone is a rock that was built by life.  All of this you see is the remains of shells that tiny animals who lived in a warm, shallow sea made.  They extracted calcium carbonate suspended in the ocean water, built up their shells with that and lived their lives inside. When they were eaten, their fleshy parts were digested, but their shells were pooped out, and sank to the bottom. Billions upon trillions of these sank to the bottom, and as more and more were added, the pressure of all those on top squeezed the water out of the ones on the bottom. More and more pressure gradually turned it into a solid mass we call rock - limestone - calcium carbonate.  If you put some under a microscope, you can still see some of the shells intact. Further up trail 3, we'll see rock that was made up of bigger shells that we can see with our naked eye.

And, since a google search makes it apparent that you can't talk about limestone without referring to current climate change, here's this, which I wouldn't talk about unless someone asked:

The ocean acts as a carbon sink, meaning that it absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere. This causes ocean acidification: the ocean becomes more acid as it absorbs more and more CO2. The pH scale measures acidity. Its lowest measurement, 0, represents strong acids. Its highest measurement, 14, represents strong bases. A netural measurement is 7, the pH of distilled water. Seawater near the ocean’s surface should have a pH of 8.2. In the last 200 years, heightened levels of CO2 have reduced surface seawater pH by 0.1, making the water 30% more acidic. With present trends, seawater will be 150% more acidic than in pre-industrial times by 2100. Heightened acidity increases concentrations of hydrogen ions in seawater. It also ties up calcium ions [how? in what molecules?] and thus creates a scarcity of calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is required by calcifying marine organisms to build stony skeletons and hard shells. - From Nielson, Frontier Scientists 10/9/2012

Get the Smell of it

Leaves

Cucumber weed

Kidneywood

Wafer Ash aka Skunkweed

Fragrant Sumac

Blooms
Pink Mimosa blooms - get up close and personal
Honeysuckle - just get within a couple yards of it

Acreage Comparison

BL is 214 or 216 acres, depending on your source.

We've been saying that to visitors, and I've been wondering what that really means.  Sure, 216 is a big number, especially if you compare it to today's typical homestead size.  I lived on 2.5 acres and it felt like that decimal moved to the right when I had to mow it.

But just how big is 216? Do people know enough to put it in some context? I sure don't.

So, to put that in some perspective -
For a schoolkid - A football field is about 1.32 acres (including endzones)- so BL is about 163 football fields. For a local urban adult - Zilker Park is 351 acres (265 football fields).

It strikes me that both of those examples are flat.  I'm wondering if acres are measured by how the crow flies, or if it takes into account the topography of the land. [Googleing]

Ah.. acres are measured by how the crow flies.  So there's actually much more land to traverse in BL's 216, than a flat urban park's 216. (I probably could have figured that out - if I thought about why they can use lasers to simply compute the straight line distance between the laser beam and receiver, ignoring all the hills and vales in between.)

Here's some comparisons of other hilly Preserves:
For a local park adult - Wild Basin Preserve is 227 acres (172 football fields).

For a regional park adult - Balcones Canyonlands Preserve is 23,000 acres (17,424 football fields).

Ash Spring

I declare this to be the Spring of the Ash.

This lovely, small tree is popping up all over.
Here's a field of trees at the top of trail 4.

I believe they are all wafer ashes, and here's their "bloom" which the adults have right now. They're a flat, round paper-like disc the size of a quarter, and they bear more than a passing resemblance to communion wafers.

I don't know how they taste, but I hear it's also known as the hop tree, and that Germans who came to Texas, and found they couldn't grow the hops they were used to, found these to be a substitute.  I wonder if any of our local brewers have tried it, or have plans to. I'd try it!

Some of them, however, may not be communion wafers, but a variant with long, thin wafers. This one is right at the creek crossing.

I also declare this particular hike as the Day I Discovered the Hand Lens.
This little beauty had been gathering dust in my backpack for a year.
But I took it out to see if I could take a picture of star moss through it for the newsletter article -and I could!

So I took it out again to see if the knobs on the mimosa tree were buds, or spent blooms. I could tell they were buds - and discovered two tiny irridescent green flies were on the leaves as well.
This caterpillar on the mimosa I could see with my naked eye:

But when I put the hand lens to it, I noticed some leaves folded over -not up, like a venus flytrap, but over and down. And there were more yellow that the normal looking leaves. Looking even closer, I think I saw tiny creatures had folded the leaves around themselves (gads, my thumb looks huge under the lens!).

Q & A

I'm kind of insatiable with questions.  I find them far more interesting than answers.  Trouble is, you need to already know some answers in order to ask good questions.  Luckily, they feed off each other in a rolling snowball effect.  I've been stopped in my tracks by a cool answer- like a photon particle can have a wavelength several miles long.  But cool questions make me stop in my tracks and repeat the question and think about the answer and wonder why no one ever though of that question before.

I think it has to do with points of view.  Answers tell you something about a point of view that already exists.  But questions define that point of view, and can create totally new points of view.  Questions frame answers.  You can have a whole bunch of data points, but until you ask "What am I looking at?", you don't have any answers.  (Just ask Seurat.)

In my first year at BL, I've busied myself absorbing answers.  I've listened to what the Nancys, Patricia and Bill tell the hiking groups.

What's that called?


I've googled more answers on my own.
Why is it called that?
Why is the blackfoot daisy called that?  Does it have black feet (roots)?  Was there a Mr. Blackfoot?  A Chief Blackfoot?

And now, buttressed and bouyed by those answers, I'm starting to be able to ask more interesting questions.
What's the difference?
That's a yucca. That's a grass.  That's a sedge.  What makes the difference?

How does it work?
I hear at least two kinds of frogs chirping & bellowing this spring.  I imagine the chirps are from small frogs, and the bellowing from large ones.  Is that right?  And do they correspond to the big and little tadpoles I saw last spring (and expect to see soon this spring)?  (And that would explain that the big tadpoles I saw weren't small ones that had been born earlier and grown, but actually a different species, born at the same time.)

The algae growing in Dry Creek gets washed away by the rains.  This is good for Dry Creek- it brings back clear water for awhile, until the algae takes over again.  But there is no such place as "away".  It gets washed into Lake Austin.  This makes me ask - Are the small stream tributaries of a lake the major source of algae?  So the algae washed into lakes after rain thrive and are responsible for lake blooms?  Or is the algae growing in very small, shallow streams of running water a different species from that growing in lakes, which are deeper and don't flow, and so they don't thrive when they're washed into lakes?

Barking

The deer visited this morning - I heard them crashing through the underbrush.  Then two short barking sounds.  I've heard deer make one short alarm call that sounded similar, but never two in a row like this.  Then suddenly the sound was across the valley.  Ah, then: a barking bird.

But what bird barks like this?  It sounded like a dog barking far away, and muzzled.  Then I watched my owl (a great horned owl I've named Henrietta Hooter, in honor of my cat she ate) fly into her tree in my yard.  And then she barked.  And she's there barking still, as I write this.

I recognizer her voice, now.  But not this song.  Why two short barks, and not the sonorous five legato notes she usually sings?

Crowing

The crows are back.  They caused quite a rucous this morning.  The dog was barking at them.  The neighbor down the hill came out to remark on them.

My first encounter with crows was in grade school.  I was walking down the hill to the beach, and came across 5 or 6 of them feeding on road kill.  My memory is of huge, intelligent birds that didn't scare easily.  We stood and watched each other for a few moments, before they flew away.

(I had a similar encounter with vultures in high school.  I was driving my little sister and me down a hot, dusty country back road.  All the windows were down, and we were moving slowly over the uneven gravel.  We approached something on the road ahead - I couldn't tell what it was till we were upon them - 5 to 6 vultures feeding off road kill.  I had approached so slowly, they didn't move.  I came to a stop about 10 feet from them.  They just turned and looked at us.  It was stalemate for a few minutes.  It felt to me like they wouldn't fly off if I drove forward, but would rather attack us.  I told my sister to roll all the windows up fast!  But eventually, of course, I drove and they flew.  I'll never forget how intelligent they looked.)

The first thing that comes up when I google Crows in Texas is Texas Crow Patrol.  They shoot crows for free.  Apparently, crows eat crops.  So they'll come and shoot them for you.  It's legal. And oddly geometrical.

Apparently, this is the western edge of their range in Texas. Google says they are permanent residents, but in this last year, I'm pretty sure I've only heard them during their breeding season Feb - June.  Perhaps they remain here, but are silent (though the thought of silent crows makes me giggle).

Walking Stick Dead

I spent a full five minutes last night watching a walking stick travel one inch and capture a juicy moth for dinner.

He's (?) been living on the screen inside my window for the past 2 months or so.  This window is right beside a bright lamp I turn on at night when I watch tv.  I've come to feel the responsibility of watching enough tv to make sure my walking stick is fed.  (Sentences you never saw coming...)  Because, of course, that moth was there, along with the couple dozen others, because of the bright light.

He doesn't have a smorgasbord, though, because the moths tend to land on the window, and he's on the screen - a full 2 inches away.  So he waits for one to land on the screen near him.  Normally, he's totally   still, with his front legs straight out in front of him (unlike in the pic above).

To capture his dinner, just the top 1/8th inch of his legs were curved under.  (His whole body is only 2 inches long.)  Then, he doesn't creep, like I would expect him to do. Instead, he wobbles.  Seriously- it looked like he was totally drunk.  Wobble wobble- one leg takes a tiny stop.  Wobble wobble - another leg takes a tiny step.  He kept this up, never deviating in pace of wobbles, until his front legs were over the moth (who never seemed to notice his wobbling predator approaching).  Then he lightningly fast grabbed the moth with his already curved front legs, using almost all his legs to wrap around the moth.  It looked like he was squeezing tighter and tighter, like a python would, but I'm not sure.

I'm also just assuming he ate it after that... I didn't stay to watch.  After all, I had more tv to watch.

Smut on corn scat

In January, when I saw my first foxes (see previous post), I was leaning over this, when I heard them yipping:

My backstory:  a neighbor put corn out to feed/entice deer to their backyard.  The deer - or someone - ate the corn, and then pooped the corn out again.  Or maybe even threw it up.  Spores land and grow, then I come along and say "wow", then hear yipping and say "wow" again.

First Hummingbird Siting

First hummingbird siting in my yard this year.  Or rather, first hummingbird hearing.  I've had the feeder   up for a month because Nancy, on the other side of the preserve, saw them in her yard a month ago.  But this morning, the first one showed up in my yard.  I was working just a few feet from the feeder.  And as Mr. H swooped in, he was loud and startled me.  I let out a little woop, and startled him right off.  I hope he comes back and enjoys my pure cane sugar.

Frolicking Foxes

So I'd heard there were foxes here.  Apropos, then, that my first contact with them was to hear them.  A short, sharp nippy bark, so familiar sounding, that I thought in moments I'd see a human and their dog.  But no. Instead, a fox appears on the trail just 15 or so feet in front of me.   It pauses without looking my direction, then turns away from me and trots off.  My first fox sighting!! And then, seconds later, while I'm still frozen in astonishment - the second one appears on the trail. Stops for longer, listening perhaps, but also doesn't look my direction.  Then turns and follows the first.  

So my first encounter was to hear them, and I see not one, but two!! Beautiful red, about the size of small to medium dogs.

As I returned from my walk 45 minutes later, a herd of about 15 deer - the largest I've seen yet -meet me in the same place (or rather- I disrupt them - in the same place).  Beauty.  But it's very apparent I'm the interloper here.

Texas Hill Country History

From time to time, I reckon I'll post some geologic histories that ring with poetry and vision.  I've read lost - McPhee of course is a given - but this is the first I've come across since moving to Mt. Lucas.  Enjoy.

From  Texas Hill Country by George Oxford Miller, 1991

The rugged hills in the heart of Texas was born of fire and water, the basic elements that Aristotle used to represent continual conflict.  Like a detective, a trained observer can decipher the ageless turmoil in the twisted, melted and worn rock strata.  A casual traveler cannot help but see and feel, and perhaps marvel at, the results of the eternal conflict.  You see the first evidence of it just west of IH 35 between Georgetown and San Antonio.  A low range of hills juts out of the blackland prairie.  The deep scars from rock quarry strop mines recall that Texas has a heart of stone – limestone.

This juncture of flat prairie and rugged limestone hills results from one of the most important geological features in Texas, the Balcones Fault.  The upper side of the fault stretches like a spread-out horseshow from Del Rio to San Antonio and curves north through Austin.  It disappears underground near Temple.  Within the open semicircle of the fault line, nature’s cycle of deposition and erosion has sculpted the Edwards Plateau into the rugged Hill Country.  At the edge of the fault, hills rise out of the prairie sod and great springs gush crystal-pure water at the rate of millions of gallons per day.  Humans have lived near the springs at Del Rio, San Antonio, New Braunfels, San Marcos and Austin for thirty thousand years. 

Few of us stop to contemplate that events that transpired millions of years ago dictate our profession, recreation and culture.  But by supplying water, soil and minerals, the lay of the land directs the society it sustains.  The essence of the Hill Country as we know it today – its resources, its character, its charm – is inherited from its geological past, the series of events that began sometime back in geological time (that means so long ago that it boggles our minds) and stretches through today and into the unforeseen future.

As you climb west onto the Edwards Plateau, say on Texas 71 or US 290, you are traveling backward through geological time.  You can time-travel back 135 million years and find dinosaur tracks in the flat rock bottoms of the Blanco and San Gabriel rivers.  Step back 300 million years at Pedernales Falls State Park and discover crinoids in the rock strata along the river.  But don’t stop yet.  At the San Saba River bridge south of Brady, you can journey back 600 million years and see fossils of some of the earliest known life forms, sea algae resembling two-foot lily pads.  The road into the past continues beyond the emergence of life to a time when the earth was in its infancy.  The Valley Spring Gneiss  at Inks Lake State Park dates back one billion years.  The pinkish crystals of feldspar were formed deep within the earth in rocks subjected to intense heat and pressure, and exposed to modern eyes by uplift and erosion.

So the roots of the Hill Country date back to primordial time when the continents were just forming.  Since then, nature’s cycle of deposition and erosion has shaped and reshaped this area countless times.  Curing the Cambrian era, 5 to 6 million years ago, shallow seas covered central Texas and deposited thick sediments of limestone, shale and marine sandstone.  Then the seas receded and erosion began wearing away the solidified sediments.  The cycle was repeated about 450 millions years ago and Ordovician seas laid down 1,400 feet of limestone known today as the Ellenburger group.  Geologists find shallow sea deposits from 350 million, 300 million and 85 million years ago.  During the late Cretaceous period, about 75 million years ago, a great uplift began pushing the coastline hundreds of miles to the east and exposing an eastward-sloping plateau of sedimentary rock thousands of feet thick.  Just as life itself once had, the Edwards Plateau emerged from the sea.  In moist periods, such as the ice ages, rivers ran deep and wide and cut steep valleys.  During the brief interval of geological time since the plateau’s emergence, rain and wind have sculpted the hills we see today. A look at the level horizon reveals that this rugged terrain was carved from a flat slab of limestone.

Ant Lions - more than you'll ever want to know

I'm reading a book on mushrooms, and the author mentions antlions.  They have nothing to do with mushrooms, but it spurred me to google it, since I've been telling visitors "Hey, at the bottom of that sand pit is an antlion, so they tell me."  And that was the extent of what I knew.

Google has enlightened me, and now I enlighten you.

Antlions, like many of us, start life as an egg.  Unlike many of us, their eggs are laid in loose sand or dirt.  They hatch into the larva stage and scuttle about until they find a good patch of loose sand or dirt to dig into.  They are about 1/2 a centimeter big (not big, in other words). Their scuttling leaves traces in the sand, and because of that, are also known as doodlebugs. 

Very often, you'll find many antlions have chosen the same area of good sand. Here, you'll find a lot of them on trail 3, just past the wood pile by the house.

They dig into the sand, creating the funnel shape.  When wandering insects fall in, the antlion grabs them with it's large pincers and inserts juices into the insect which creates a scrumptious antlion smoothie.  When the antlion has slurped the last, it throws the insect carcass out.  Curiously, I've never seen either doodles or discarded insect carcasses by our antlion dens.  Perhaps because, once we see them and say "Oo, what's that?  Oh, that's an antlion, so they tell me",  we walk right over them, destroying doodles, sand pits, and crushing carcasses to blend into the loose dirt.

The sandpits are about one to two inches across (diameter).  Why do wandering insects fall in, you ask?   Why don't they simply walk back out, if they find themselves in it? And I might add, why are the traps the size and shape they are?  That's where my love of geology, and geology terminology, comes in.  Suffer me, please.  (Or skip it..) 

The slope of the funnel is not based on some aesthetics the larva might possess.  Nor on some instinct to build the funnel precisely this wide and this deep.  Nope.  Rather,  the slope is determined by the sand/dirt's angle of repose.  (Did you miss it?  That's a technical geological term.  Angle of repose.  Poetic, huh? Makes me envision a naked goddess on a chaise lounge, gazing directly at you.)  

Angle of repose is defined at that angle (slope) at which those particular sized particles of sand/dirt/clay at that particular humidity level, etc, are just on the brink of not falling down the slope.  So the antlion creates the funnel slope until he can feel the particles are just on the brink of not falling down.  This means when an ant comes along, she (for they are always shes) adds just enough energy to make the particles fall down the slope, and the ant goes with them.  Very similarly (but not the same) to when when we humans add just enough energy to a loose rock on the trail that it falls further downhill, and we go with it.  Thankfully, there are no antlion jaws waiting for us.

(Aside - I also wonder how antlions fare with fireants.  Are they able to subdue these invaders? Are their species of antlions where fireants usually lived that can handle them?...)

The larva live in this stage for about three years, which is long for this small a creature.  Made longer by the fact that they have no anus.  Yup.  They store all the unused stuff up, then barf it up in one big pellet before they change to the next phase.

When it's ready, anywhere from 2 to 3 years (when is that?  how do they know?  do they keep a calendar? when they feel full?  when they really, really, REALLY need to poop?) they build a cocoon using the sand and dirt particles around them and silk from a spinerette to bind it all together ("silk" is the word wikipedia uses.  Is this convergent evolution with spider silk, or is it a different molecule?).  They stay in the cocoon for about one month, and when they emerge into their adult stage, they have completely metamorphized into something resembling a damselfly.  Because of this, I'm betting the impetus for the larva to metamorphize is that somehow it senses it's full - that it's got enough molecules, finally, to build an adult body.

And, wiki tells me, the antlion has the largest difference in size between the larva and adult stages - they manage this because the larva stage is a squat, compact, dense thing and the adult stage is built so flimsily and ethereally.  A note to fans of transformers and metamorphizing superheroes here: I can totally buy that a dose of radiation can transform a mild mannered scientist into a monstrous creature.  But folks, the total mass just gots to remain the same!  There are only so many atoms that can be rearranged just so many ways. There's no way a hulk can be produced from Bill Bixby. Unless he was a really short hulk.

As adults, their primary purpose is to find a mate, mate, and for the female to then lay the eggs.  They only live about a month in this phase, and they are active at night, so are not likely to be confused with damselflies.  One website says they might give you a bite if they land on you.  But they aren't trying to eat you - as adults, they eat nectar.  Which makes sense - creatures need to eat protein to build their bodies, then sugars and carbs to give energy to the adult bodies they created.  Some birds, I believe, also eat like this - adults bring protein food (insects, etc) to the young, who switch to sugars and carbs (seeds, nectar if you're a hummingbird) when they're adults.

Finally, (thank God, you say) google enlightened me to the fact that people keep these things as pets.  I.. just.. don't know what to say about that.  Watch a funnel for three years, then watch an adult fly around for a few days (if you're lucky).

Great Horned Owls Get Colds

That's all, folks.  Just that - Great Horned Owls Get Colds. I never thought their hoot would make me giggle and feel sorry for it,  but that happened this morning.  Never say never.

New Year's Day Hike

50 degrees, almost no wind, it really rained for about 2 minutes last night, otherwise drizzle for 24 hours

The lichen is wet and wonderfully green.

While I was taking this shot, I heard my first coyote howl during a hike.   And had my first uncomfortable realization that when I'm taking pictures of lichen, I'm not making much noise - so I'm not scaring things off.

Right before the lichen, a sighting of a rare white gall on trail 7.

(AKA gallf ball)  These usually grow on trail 3; trail 7 is more remote, so it's more surprising there.  Funny - you think they might prefer trail fore!

Two mornings in a row, now, in the same place high on 3, near the tower, I've heard either a large animal peeing strongly or a human hosing or dumping water for a few seconds.

Galls on an oak tree-   there are about 20 on this one tree. Is there something special about the tree?   Or is it simply laziness?  Or do they prefer company?  (Galls are growths the tree makes - like scars- around a wasp or other creature who burrows into the tree to grow.)

Inside, this one is yellow and spongy.  No sign of an occupant.

On the way home, a shelf shroom on an oak stump.

What makes the rings different colors? Obviously different molecules, right? But which?  And why?  Temperature?  Water availability?  Nutrient differences in the oak?  Or even - the same molecules, but in different positions, the opposite end, or the side absorbing or reflecting light waves differently...

Oh, by the way, the toiletflex had been moved off the path.  Deer?  Human?
(How the hell did it get there?)

Obligatory Cat Pics

Sister kitties lounging on the porch on a rainy last day of 2012.  It's so wonderful to have cats that like each other's company.

Annabelle Lee gets a licking from Sister Bea

December Views

Solstice hike - four large, very fresh, coyote poops on upper trail 3. Too fresh to be called scat. Fresh enough to make me look up and about, expecting to connect with eyes asking "Hey, what are you poking my poop for?"

One cedar sage still blooming.

December 31st hike - Drizzle overnight has made the lichens, moss, fungus and cyanobacteria come to life. These normally crispy dry things are fat with water and slippery. I swear I can see them jiggle with joy like tribbles or Santa's belly.

Nostoc -aka Gorilla Snot

Star-shaped fungus(?)

And then there are the mysteries - things gloriously appearing on the path, making me stop in my tracks and see things in a new light, like the beauty of light bent through the rain captured by agarita:

Or the intricacies of plumbing, brought on by this rare toiletflex sighting:

(Now how the hell did it get there?)

January 1 Haiku - my first haiku since 5th grade, I think. Brought on by reading a biography of Rumi and listening to the wind in the bare trees this morning, after a night of rain with not a breath of wind.
11 days after the solstice - 13 seconds longer each day.  I swear I can tell already.

wind whistling the trees
days longer now, but colder
already: promise