A group of people living in the same place

In June, fresh out of school for summer vacation, I attended a clothing swap. My invite came over text and was short and sweet. Bring any old clothes you don’t want and show up at 4:00pm. As someone who is obsessed with organizing things, I regularly go through my closet and get rid of any items I don’t use. This was a bit of a hiccup to my attendance, could I show up empty handed? I managed to find a couple of old workout leggings and a hat that had seen better days and I packed up my car and went.

I arrived to the house nervous about my lack of offerings. The door was unlocked and I went in to find many women scouring over piles of clothes in various levels of undress. There was a low hum of chatter and a cheese board laid out on a kitchen island. I scanned the room for someone I knew and didn’t find anyone. Finally a familiar face appeared, a coworker from another department. I was ushered into the fold, “lay your clothes out by category and dig in.”

How are your kids. What’s new this summer. We are moving to a new place. How’s your grandmother. Did you catch that episode last week. I dug through piles of used clothing, listening to the conversations unfold around me. I imagined what these women did in the clothes, did they go to the bank? Did they have an important doctor’s visit? Why did they decide to get rid of them? A woman approached me and asked me my shoe size. She crawled on the floor and thrust a pair of sandals at me. “Try these on.” The experience felt like being enveloped into a cocoon of womanhood. The space made sacred by our energies and presence. The clothes an excuse and the conversation the purpose.

As I picked at the dried cranberries and slices of cheddar I felt dizzy. Is this what community feels like? In a country that prides itself on the individual, what space is left for community?

One of my unpaid jobs is to manage a community trail in my neighborhood. I do this with a small (3) set of volunteers and a tiny budget from the neighborhood HOA funds. Our work is difficult and we struggle to get more help. Many of the neighbors think we can hire out most of the work, their misunderstanding of our finances is comical. Yet, we enjoy what we do. We meet up, work on the tedious task of removing invasive species. Talk about seeds, native wildflowers and butterflies. We sweat into our long sleeve protective clothing, tools sprawled out on the ground. Despite the small group and variety of ages, we connect on a deep level. We all want to see the trail thrive, and we take pride in being able to help it do that.

After sending out handfuls of emails, posting flyers and even offering free food, we still only number in the single digits. One thing I have learned is that you can’t force community. People have to opt in. They have to seek out connection with others. Lots of times I’ll meet neighbors and they will say “nothing is ever happening in the neighborhood.” I have to just sit and nod my head. It takes work to be a member of a community.

What does community look like in today’s age?

It’s the lost and found hanging on a tree in the dog park.

It’s bringing a coffee to your friend recovering from back surgery. Sitting with her as she tells you about her slow walk through healing.

It’s the pay it forward bulletin board at the local cafe.

It’s your neighbor calling to let you know your sprinkler head broke and offering to turn off your water.

It’s sending flowers to your friend on the day of her marathon, and her sending a bouquet back when you have the flu.

It’s the run club singing happy birthday at 6:45am on a Tuesday.

It’s the clothing swap, the buy nothing group, the facebook borrow requests, the lost and found pets page.

It’s everything.

A Hike in Wildbasin Will Solve All Your Problems

There is a quote from Game of Thrones that has been rattling around in my brain lately. The religious zealot has moved into the capitol and is causing a stir in the city. The young king Tommen Baratheon is visiting the zealot and slowly becoming enthralled by his lengthy speeches and charismatic leadership. The zealot says “I imagine you have worn a year of someone’s life on your back” referring to the detailed and extravagant clothing Tommen wears.

The quote came back to me sometime recently as I was watching a YouTube video about why the quality of all our furniture sucks now. High quality things take time to make and perfect. I couldn’t help but think about how many things used to take so much longer to make and how time must have seemed so different then. Moving into a house and buying furniture could have taken a few years, while you were waiting for something to be made and shipped to you. Building a house could have taken even longer. In a world where everything is now fast, is there anything at all that is still slow? Is there anything worth waiting for?

One thing that has always moved at its own pace is nature. While some trees may take a decade to produce fruit, others bloom within a few months of planting. Humans seem to have the ability to alter this rate of change. Our involvement in nature often means a rapid decline into degradation. We move in clear out anything useful and leave a trail of invasive species in our wake. However, what if that energy was put towards something productive?

In the 1970s a group of seven women sporting matching red tennis shoes and knee length skirts decided to start a conservation movement called “Now or Never”. Their legacy is a series of protected wildlife preserves that span the 360 highway up into the hill country. They had an uphill battle attempting to do something that had never been done before. Their success created Wild Basin, 227 acres of steep hills and cedar canopies. Spending a morning in Wild Basin will leave you feeling just a little bit better about the world and the potential for positive change.

When I arrived at the preserve it looks like just about every other place in the Texas Hill country. It’s rocky, full of Cedar trees, and the whole preserve is a piece of hillside that juts downward into a ravine below. Once you enter the shade of the trees you notice a greenhouse an outdoor classroom and a collection of potted plants. This outdoor classroom was part of the original plan 50ish years ago. While the preserve seems to look no different than say the greenbelt or maybe Emma Long park, the difference is in the details.

Wild Basin was intensely altered by human activity. This activity started well before the women of Now or Never started their campaign. The land has been logged for cedar to make telephone poles, it has been grazed for cattle and also burned in a fire. While some pockets still have hundred year old cedar trees, they are few and far between. When the Now or Never crew arrived it was in a sorry state. However, there is one thing that kept them motivated. This area is native habitat for the Black Capped Vireo and the Golden Cheeked Warbler. This is their nesting habitat, one of their only nesting habitat in the entire world. Without this land, those two species and many others, will disappear.

Black Capped Vireo in the Vireo/ Wild basin preserve Austin tx. Photo by me.

The task ahead of Now or Never was to preserve the land and rehabilitate it back into a habitat a young nesting female Warbler would be happy to live in. It’s hard to imagine what was going through their minds in that moment. The seven women standing on hill looking out at bare rocks. Oaks and cedars choked by drought and erosion. A completely overgrazed and degraded hillside lay before them that was doomed to become a planned neighborhood development. I am sure they were called all sorts of things, crazy, idealistic, and most of all impossible. Yet, if you attend a guided hike in Wild basin 50 years later, you can’t tell that the land was anything but wild.

If you are planning to restore an eroded bare hillside, the first thing you want to do is collect rainwater. Volunteers, students, and some paid employees have constructed rainwater collection barrels. In addition there are physical alterations to the landscape. Deep groves have been cut into the hillside to slow down rainwater and collect soil. Branches are carefully laid into brush berms to harvest every last drop of water. Plants can now be strategically planted. Areas are chosen where they have the highest chance of survival. Volunteers come diligently each week to water the saplings for two years or more. Helping the young sprouts make it through their first two summers.

Photo of the rainwater collection system and wildflower filed in the Wild Basin Preserve.

Wild basin is a testament to human caring. Those seven women saw the destructive power of development and decided that we can do better. It can take between 100-300 years for degraded landscapes to return to their natural state without human involvement. It can also take only a few months for that same landscape to be destroyed again. The Now or Never women have successors who have taken up their cause. Their project is ongoing and many people have chosen to continue with their legacy.

Special thanks to biologist for the Vireo Preserve and Wild basin Jim O. who has been organizing volunteers for many years on the project.

Map of a portion of the protected lands west of Austin. Wild Basin and the Vireo preserve are circled in red.

We are also the environment

I have lots of great conversations with students. In many teacher trainings they talk about these small moments with students and how they add up to a greater relationship. However, what I find to be more interesting is when you can literally hear the gears in their heads turning. When you have said something that makes them make a connection. I had one of those moments last week when a student asked if we should be writing about “how this affects people or the environment.” I responded “Well we are also the environment.”

I wish I could take credit for coining this phrase but I can’t. Its been making the rounds on the internet and Its been rephrased so many times that I don’t know where it came from originally. However, it has me thinking about our relationship with the other species that we interact with around us. No species exists alone, and even the most solitary requires something from someone. So what are we giving, and receiving to those around us?

Female hummingbird, photo by me 2023

The hummingbird comes to my yard and visits my flowers. She is a regular on our block and buzzes from house to house checking her regular haunts. I have a purple trumpet honeysuckle that I planted last year which she loves. As the heat thickened and the summer drags on, the purple bush stopped putting out flowers. I noticed that the humming bird would still come each day, just to check. This is when I decided to put out a feeder, for the end of season.

Within one morning she had found the feeder and began visiting more regularly. With more food came some more competition. A male arrived, his little patch of pink sticking out under his beak. She was not so keen to share and a dispute ensued. As the two fought, a third competitor approached. A second female snuck in to grab a snack while the two chased each other through the tree above. I found myself wondering what drama I had created with this massive addition of resources.

Male ruby throated hummingbird, photo by me 2023

Our most charismatic roommate here in the household is the female squirrel that lives in our oak tree. She has had two generations of children here. Though I can not be certain that she is the same female year to year, I feel that her personality is so distinct I must be able to tell her apart from others. She sits on the low hanging branch and entices my dog Mila to come outside and bark. Her chattering almost a beacon. Mila will hear her from any room in the house and come running outside. I don’t feed this squirrel intentionally but she eats about 20% of my produce from my garden annually. I grew several sunflowers and only one managed to have a decent crop of seeds. One day I came home from work with to a text from my neighbor. It was a grainy photo of the squirrel carrying the whole head of the sunflower back to her nest.

baby squirrels from last year. Photo by me.

Garden Notes, the Last Week of April

The Grackles love the water, they bathe in it with an excitement and ferocity. They jump and throw the droplets over their slick backs in waves with their wings. They all drink from the birdbath, a feat I can not understand. The water always seems filled with algae and bugs. Who knows what it does to their digestive system.

A mourning dove has a nest in the tree behind me. No doubt to be near the water. It has been calling out to someone, maybe a mate or a potential mate. Its late in the season to be finding someone but maybe there is another dove that needs a partner. I wonder how they find each other in a city so large.

Other birds are also chirping, adding to the sounds of the neighborhood. They chirp in loud bursts as if sharing some important gossip or news. They never seem to stop and just begin to chirp over each other. What they have to say is more important than pausing to hear a response. Maybe they are engaging in some type of group activity. Maybe the real sound is all of them together not one alone.

With all of the rain we have been having, the greenery is lush and vibrant. As if the plants are keen on reinventing their own version of the color. I cam outside yesterday to find that my tomatoes had grown almost a foot. This is my first year companion planting and my tomatoes are the best they have ever been. They like to lean on their neighbors for support and their stems gently weave themselves between the shoots of mint and lantana. They seem to be telling me that this is how they were meant to grow all along. The mint keeps the snails away and I have yet to loose a plant this year to pests.

My cantalope is eager to bloom and has put forth numerous flowers. I have been trimming them as the plant is too young to produce fruit. Its small leaves are half the size they will be and needs to spend more time growing. It expresses the impatience of a teenager ready to be independent. Its response to my trimming is to bloom more. As if it hopes I’ll miss one and it will be allowed to fruit. Ive been eating all the blooms and they have the most wonderful delicate flavor. It tastes like cantaloupe but whispy and quiet. Where the cantaloupe is sweet and vibrant the blooms are subtle and quiet. Each tasting a little different for just seconds until the flavor disappears. By the time you have swallowed it you question if it was even there.

The garden beds in the backyard have just a few hours of sun and will likely take months for the plants to grow. The squirrels are treating the beds like their own private grocery store, chewing and digging up anything they like. One morning I noticed nearly half my plants dug up or full of bite marks. They left the mangled remains of the stems in the dirt, letting me know that these were not to their liking. In an attempt to make peace I set out sunflower seeds for them. Two days later my homemade feeder was chewed to shreds and the seeds were all over the ground. My offerings seem to be unwanted and insufficient.

The mother squirrel who nests in the knot of the tree has already said goodbye to two babies this year. They left the nest when they were small, but stuck around on the same tree. One left first, the second baby stayed for a week longer. The babies are now the same size as the mom and hard to differentiate between each other. It feels like the number of squirrels in the neighborhood has doubled in the past month. They are crawling out of every bush and tree, in the roads and sidewalks. The hawks and owls must be getting fat this spring. With all the water, the squirrels and mice have so much to eat, there is plenty to go around.

Turn your front yard into a butterfly garden

This is not a blog post about what you should do in the future, its what you should be doing right now. The title is a statement. You need to turn your front yard into a butterfly garden, and its easier and cheaper than you ever thought it was.

I’m new to pollinator gardens. I’ve had a vegetable garden in every place I’ve lived that could support a potted plant or more. BUT, I have yet to plant anything for the specific desire to attract and feed pollinators. Man have I been missing out, and if you are interested in starting one, you are too. I got into pollinator gardening in a class project and I took what I learned from the classroom back home to implement in our yard. You need two things to make this work, a reliable source of water, and native perennial plants. The water source is very important and should be a shallow birdbath or bowl that you keep filled up regularly. After adding a birdbath we had a small group of miner bees move into our yard.

These miner bees are solitary and dig a small home in your garden bed. They sometimes nest around each other but don’t form hives. We have about 4-5 that live in our garden and we have seen drink from the birdbath. These miner bees look a little like wasps from far away but are more small and stout.

Part of the class project I mentioned above was planting milkweed in the garden to attract monarch butterflies. This year my milkweed was mature enough that I planted it and I have had regular monarch visitors ever since. I also got to experience 4 caterpillars from hatching all the way to cocoon. Though I know that this process happens its very different to witness it first hand in your garden. The monarch cocoon has gold accents! My biologist brain cant figure out why it would be evolutionarily successful to have gold accents on a cocoon but they exist.

It turns out milkweed is the easiest plant to grow. It literally is a weed and goes to seed 3-4 times in a summer. Those seeds then grow fast enough to sprout and flower within a month. The Monarch and its lookalike the Queen butterfly will eat the milkweed leaves as caterpillars. A single caterpillar can de-leaf a whole plant but don’t worry. The milkweed will just sprout new leaves in their place. Once the caterpillar is certified chonky it will find a quiet place to form a cocoon, usually my vegetable patch, and spend several days turning into a butterfly.

You can buy milkweed seeds online for very cheap and plant in early fall. I sprouted my seeds in seed starter cups before planting. However, after my experience this season you could probably throw them over your shoulder into the wind then sneeze on them once and they would be fine. You will get lots of aphids in Texas, so I sprayed the aphids one time when I saw them with a diluted soapy water mixture. Try not to spray the leaves of your milkweed or you could impact your caterpillars.

Good luck and I hope to see some photos of your butterfly garden next year.

Mckinney Falls on Full Display

Whether you are new to Austin or have lived here all your life, McKinney falls holds a special place in your heart. Even as suburbia encroaches on to the border of the park, once inside you feel miles away from the city.

Upper falls, at McKinney falls SP.

A dry October has caused the upper falls to shrink to barely a fountain. However, the fill display of fall is present in the background which makes for a great shot of Onion Creek.

Upstream from Upper Falls

Above the falls limestone pools look like underwater caves. These pools are seasonal homes to catfish, and bass. The larger fish hiding deeper in the water with the younger ones closer to the surface. If you sit on the edge of the bank you might see a monster catfish sulk by in a shadow.

Downstream of Upper Falls

If you hike downstream you are in for a treat. Onion creek winds through a riverbed banked with large cypress trees. The slow moving water trickles over rocks and logs echoing through the forest. Here is where you might see the most wildlife, off the busy trails.

Blanchard’s Cricket frog Acris blanchardi

With all of the dry weather, the grasshoppers and crickets were covering the trails. Its no surprise that the cricket frog mad an appearance. This individual was not interested in moving from its rock, so I gave it some space.

Overall a great way to spend the afternoon.

Can you paddle away the pandemic?

Disclaimer: this post has a lot of sarcasm and no real information about the pandemic.

Red Bud Island Austin Tx

Hey, whats up its 2020 the year of the rat which feels really fitting because this year feels like its been stuck in a culvert under New York full of pizza crusts used needles. Everything is closed, and if its not closed you have no interest in going there anyway. If I am going to get the Rona’ its not going to be from a hair stylist trimming my split ends. So you have spent every waking and sleeping moment in your home, you have watched as much Netflix as your spine allows, and already attempted sourdough bread. Whats next? As the temperature rises to egg frying pavement level you head to the only place imaginable, the river (or lake, people in Austin cant seem to decide if its a lake or river).

First though you are going to need some sort of watercraft. You have the option of going to the local outdoors store (masked up of course) and spending 500$ on whatever kayak is left on the shelf or you can head to facebook marketplace. Either option sucks because you know for a fact just two weeks ago that same kayak was $250 and they jacked the price up because they aren’t restocking anytime soon. The last choice on your list, and I mean last choice is to buy one off Amazon which would mean supporting the one company that tried to fire workers for protesting better working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. When you log on to the manufacturer website you find out that they have closed their factories for the health and safety of their employees and are paying them hazard pay as they stay home to be with their families. Shed a tear for all that is good in the world. However, none of this gets you a paddle board into your greedy first world hands. So you click “Buy NOW” on the sidebar of amazon taking a moment of silence for the underpaid employee that had to pack your box in the warehouse on a Thursday night so it could get here in time for one day shipping. Pour one out for the employees at amazon right?

Turkey creek entrance Lake Austin

So your paddle board gets here and its OH so sweet. It smells like new plastic and you are already dreaming of paddling up and down the river like one of those people on instagram. The first thing you need to do is inflate it. It comes with a pump, manual obv, and you are sitting here thinking that its 2020 and I have to manually pump up my paddle board? Not gonna happen. So You head over to that box in the closet that no one opens and find your air mattress pump. Plug it in and set up your paddle board only to find out that it has some sort of proprietary valve opening that only fits their included manual pump. This is equivalent of apple changing their charger cables every 5 years so you have to upgrade your devices and buy all new hardware. Screw the electric pump you decide to do it manually. The first 10 minutes are easy and you think this is doable and then it gets to the halfway mark. After checking the manual you realize that the board must be pumped to 13psi which is a whole 6 psi more than what you have already done. You keep pumping away only to stop and realize that your back hurts like you have been working on a factory line for 20 years and you go find someone else to finish the rest of the pumping for you.

Greers Ferry Lake Arkansas

You finally get to take the board out after what seems like 10 extra hoops to jump through than you expected. It is awesome, its amazing, the nature is blissful and quiet. There is enough space to get away from anyone you encounter. Fish, animals, plants are abundant and you see more than you ever expected to see. For a few fleeting moments you can forget about the pandemic. You can forget about the state board of education making teachers go back to work as they decide this via a zoom call. You can forget the endless news cycle of bad news and more cases. You forget everything for just a few moments a day. Then you realize that your white collar job of standing in front of a classroom has not prepared you to use your arms as a form of transportation on a watercraft. You get a cramp the size of New Mexico but not quite as large as Nevada. You paddle back to shore, load your board and head home. For the entire afternoon you are laid up on the couch because you forgot to drink water the whole time you were out because you were too busy looking at all the fish. The next day you cant lift your arms but you are ready to go back anyway.

Plastic Free July the Plastic Plateau

Plastic Free July is an Australia based initiative to get people to spend one month auditing, changing and reducing their plastic. It has grown to a worldwide activity that has been praised by many to be the momentum we need to educate the public on plastic waste. Zoos, aquariums, and cities are challenging residents and visitors to forgo single use plastics. If you would like to take their survey and sign up head to this link: https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/

Birds nest with plastic, photo by me 2019

We are currently at the halfway mark and I have officially reached a plastic plateau. This is not my first year attempting to do Plastic Free July, and for those of you interested, no I have not actually reached plastic free. I have figured out that there are a few things that are just too necessary or designed in such a way that make using them unavoidable.

We all know category 1, the dreaded single use plastic. This is the category that cities, states, and even countries are trying to ban. These are things that are often thrust upon us without even asking, they are taken for granted, and they are most likely to end up in the environment. Lucky for you this is the easiest category to eliminate. Grab yourself a nice reusable cup, water bottle and utensil set and you are free from the burden of destroying the environment every time you eat out somewhere.

Category 2 is the section for lazy eaters. These people don’t like to meal prep, buy in bulk, and they also don’t like their food touching each other in the grocery basket. It took a significant amount of effort to convince my husband that you can just put your produce in the basket and its fine. If you are really worried about it just put it in a canvas bag and take it out when you checkout. Also if you aren’t buying bulk yogurt yet, who are you?

The third category kicks up the difficulty a bit. All of the plastic in this category is designed in such a way to trick you into spending more money for buying less food. Pre-packaged chips, crackers and cookies are great for on the go lunches but they usually cost more. These can be tricky because sometimes they aren’t labeled as pre-packaged and you may have just bought 100 of them from Costco. The pre-packaged fresh produce is just annoying. It tricks you into thinking that you have just saved yourself time by buying pre-cut mushrooms or zucchini noodles only to realize that its 2x the price for half the product. Just skip this aisle.

The last and final category is where I am residing. These are unavoidable products that come pre-packaged in plastic and there is no alternative offered. In our house we are addicted to frozen fruit and frozen vegetables. We love buying bulk frozen broccoli and blueberries. We go through about a 5 lb bag of blueberries a week. (we are not a family of bears if you are wondering) However, the alternative to this would be more expensive fresh fruits and veggies that don’t last as long. So far no company makes canvas or cardboard boxes of frozen veggies yet. Alas I am stuck in plastic wrapped frozen food purgatory.

This brings us to the huge elephant in the room:
The trash bag

A photo of my recycling bin. Me attempting to not use a trash bag..

The Plastic Free July website is a strong advocate of not using trash bags in your home. This may seem like a completely bizarre request. I have a few problems with this but I am attempting it nonetheless. One issue is that our trash pickup trucks are designed in such a way that the truck picks up the bin hoists it vertically in the air and flings the bin with enough force to dump the trash out into the TOP of the truck. I have included a very detailed and painstakingly drawn diagram of how the trash pickup looks. In order make sure that the bin is totally empty the operator will sometimes give it a tough yank causing any non-bagged trash to go flying in the air as the driver flings the bin back in forth in a windshield wiper motion.

Trash truck photo by the city of Austin

Trash bags are actually not designed to be recycled and the city of Austin requests that you don’t bag your recycling for that purpose. When it comes to landfill trash they tend to make a mess of an already messy situation. They aren’t biodegradable so they they take up landfill space, they also can slow down the natural process of decomposition. Another issue is that many landfills grind up their trash, making tiny slivers of plastic bags that can then blow away in the wind.

landfill photo by the city of Austin

I am not sure if anyone is ready to stop using plastic bags in their landfill trash just yet. There are some great biodegrade alternatives but they are pricey. The Plastic Free July website suggests using newspaper to line your trash bin and then wrapping any messy trash in newspaper. But like I don’t get a newspaper so where do I get that from?

If you are interested in trying the challenge I suggest you start by filling out the survey. If you want more info on plastic free life checkout this website by Beth Terry called “My plastic free life” she is way better at this than I am : https://myplasticfreelife.com/

The plastic detox by Learning Fundamentals At https://learningfundamentals.com.au/go-plastic-free-find-your-strength/?mc_cid=832d661102&mc_eid=062faa335f

City Nature Challenge 2019

If you are an amateur naturalist or a regular person that just wants to know know “what the heck that thing is on the porch” then you need to download the inaturalist app. The app was created by a citizen science research group on Los Angeles as a way to collect more data about nature we come into contact with. As a species we are altering the world like never before, and it is important to understand how animals are adapting (or not) to our presence. One way is to simply make observations about their location. The number of future uses for this information is absolutely limitless so its obvious to see that I’m excited.

This year was the first year I participated in the City Nature Challenge hosted by inaturalist. Each year for one weekend they challenge cities all over the globe to take as many photos as possible of nature. Using your smartphone you upload your pictures online and get points for your city. This year’s winner was Cape Town South Africa.

Picture from inaturalist website. Checkout their interactive website here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2019

If you are curious as to what it takes to win just check out their stats. Cape Town observers made 54,000 observations using the app, and a whopping 743 people participated, in just one weekend. Some notable observations from the Cape town challenge are below.

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From left to right the Sacred Ibis (photo by Kang1014 CC) looks incredible against the green marshland. Next is the Chacma baboon (photo by Tony Rebelo CC) which appears to be on someones lawn, or its very possible that the house is now their turf. Imagine waking up to that in the morning and trying to get to your car. I would like to give a shout-out to the overacheiver who went scuba diving during the city nature challenge and photographed a Knobby Anemone (Peter Southwood CC). Lastly an animal that I did not know existed until I started writing this post, is the Cape Grysbok (photo by Klaus Wehrlin CC), which is a tiny antelope.

Austin didn’t make the leader board this year but we collected 16,214 observations with 798 people participating. The challenge took place during the height of the wildflower bloom so you know already that most of the photos are of either butterflies or flowers. Since snakes generally get overlooked I thought I would highlight some of the cool snakes that people observed during the nature challenge.

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From left to right: The Coachwhip (Brian Hinds CC) is a very cool snake that gets its name from having a long thin tail that looks like a whip. They can appear with the coloring in the photo or they can be a completely brown/tan color. They are nonvenomous and many people have uploaded pictures on inaturalist holding the Coachwip in one hand. Yikes. The beautiful speckled snake is a checkered garter snake (Sara Viernum CC), also not venomous. You might sneak up on one of these while swimming in a local creek or river. They hide out in the water and will swim out when you get near them. The garter snake is pretty docile and people often keep them as pets, but they can bite if provoked in the wild.

The plain bellied water snake is the only one in this lineup that I have seen in the wild. They are very common in the Austin greenbelt and Barton springs. I have snapped some photos of these for the app while hiking, but none quite as good as the one posted during the nature challenge. This snake is harmless but it will mimic some cottonmouth defensive behavior if provoked. They are frequently confused with cottonmouths.

The last snake on the list is too adorable to handle, the Texas Blind Snake (Michael Fox CC). This snake is no larger than an earthworm and shares the same habitat. They feed on tiny insects in the soil and will emerge when it rains. Though they have eye spots they do not have functioning eyes and are in fact blind. These little dudes are apparently excellent housekeepers because the Eastern Screech Owl will seek out a blind snake and bring them to their nest to clean up the parasites. Way to be a bro Texas Blind Snake!

If you are looking for the next cool thing to do while hiking I highly recommend using the app to identify and collect data. As citizen scientists and professionals comb through the immense data set we created in the challenge, we get to all sit back and feel good about ourselves for contributing. Here’s to next years challenge.

Photos from this post were taken from users who uploaded pictures to inaturalist, unless otherwise stated. Photos used in this post are listed for open source use and the original creator was credited.

Introduction to Texas Wildflowers

Wildflower season is almost over and man has it been a doozy. This April the Austin area had a whopping 9.8 inches of rain total for the month. That isn’t a record but its higher than average. In Texas, April showers do in fact bring May flowers and the bloom this year was incredible.

The first arrivals are the state flower of Texas, the bluebonnet. They bloom early and mark the time when the city stops mowing highway roadsides and medians. This practice began in 1934 and was further reinforced by Lady Bird Johnson her self. There is a heavily repeated rumor that it is illegal in Texas to mow over the state flower. That is not in fact set in stone but mowing the roadsides in Texas are cycled with the spring bloom. Most of the motivation is for beautification, not necessarily ecology, but a win is a win and we will take it. The Texas department of transportation is responsible for maintaining the roadside wildflowers and each year they plant 30,000 pounds of seeds to supplement and improve biodiversity.

This flower belongs to the Salvia genus also known as Sage. There are a wide variety of colors that Sage can appear in but this one happens to be a purple/ blue.

Texas Bluebonnet, David R. Tribble Wikimedia Commons. The early spring was incredibly rainy and dark this year. I missed the window to get any good bluebonnet photos.

Blooming around the same time as the Bluebonnets, the Indian Paintbrushes or Castilleja indivisa usually compete for the same territory. They have a beautiful array of oranges and light yellow which lends you some idea as to how they go their name.

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As the Bluebonnets begin to die they start to turn a bit white, with the later blooming varieties being a bit more pale in color. They produce this odd looking pea pod shaped seed that starts out hairy and begins to turn brown as it ripens. Then the oranges a reds appear with many members of the daisy family beginning to bloom. The grass looks as if a magnificent artist reached out and painted the ground with all manner of shades of yellow and orange. As the wind blows they all undulate like an underwater sea grass bed. The butterflies begin to appear and burst on the scene. Many of the most common butterflies are similar in color to the flowers blooming at the time. For a brief period of time driving seems ruthless as inevitably a few perish on your windshield.

Most of these yellow flowers are Ratibida columnifera or the Upright Prairie Coneflower, or the Mexican hat. It is a member of the daisy family.

Some butterfly visitors.

One of the mid to late bloomers is the Common Poppy or Papaver rhoeas. Though this plant is related to the Opium poppy it does not share any of the characteristics that make that plant popular. It has been seen as an agricultural pest and with the advent of pesticides the Common Poppy is seen less often. I went and stayed one night at a friends house and all of their poppies opened at the same time early in the morning.

Common Poppy, with a bee friend.

Whether you are new to Texas or a lifelong resident, the spring bloom is a sight to behold. It makes the spring one of the most magical times of year and worth the long wait.

The Beyond Meat Burger Breakdown

Food is changing, and not in ways that most people will understand. Ever since I watched a Youtube doc about New Wave foods making seafood from algae I realized that food is about to get really weird. Two companies at the forefront have stepped up to make beef a thing of the past. Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are both making a vegan version of a patty that looks and tastes like real meat. Impossible foods debuted their bleeding vegan burger at CNET in January and it grew quite a following. It has taken since then for one of Beyond Meat’s burgers to land in Austin and I went to give it a try.

The burger I tasted is available at the Whole foods downtown on their plant based burger bar. They supply a variety of vegan options on the menu so you have to specifically select the Beyond Meat burger from the list. The burger by itself was 9.00$ with tax, which is higher priced than I expected but about normal for lunch at whole foods. Overall the burger is really good, it tastes like meat, looks like it, and most importantly the texture is spot on. The only thing lacking is the layer of dripping cow fat the comes off a fried patty of ground beef. Also lacking was that sickly full feeling you get after eating a big juicy burger. I have not had the opportunity to taste the Impossible burger but I have read that it is very similar. However, we need to take a look at the sustainability of this new food option. It has the possibility to be one of those things that appears to be good for the environment but really isn’t. Its made in a factory, dyed, processed and flavored. Lets break it down and see how it stands up to regular beef.

Photo by Jean-Pierre Bazard Wikimedia commons 2012

To many, the idea of making something in a lab to look and appear like meat is rather disheartening. One of the reasons I struggle with grocery store vegetarian options is that they are mostly made from soy and they mostly suck. Fake chicken-esque burgers are not my idea of a good meal and its hard to find some really good protein options that people can cook at home. Soy itself is not the greatest, and is notoriously bad for the environment. Both USA and Brazil are the leading producers of soy in the world, and both countries are dealing with habitat loss from increased demand. However, if we could transition completely from a meat based diet to a plant based protein diet, instead of adding soy, we might be able to end up with a net win. There is no doubt that eating down the food chain is more beneficial to the environment, but really how much?

The following information is for the Beyond Meat burger only, not the Impossible burger, which has different ingredients. The BB burger is made primarily of Pea protein, Canola oil, and Coconut oil. The color comes from Beet juice, the texture and structure is made from plant cellulose and there are flavors added to the burger.

Figure legend: GHGE: greenhouse gas emissions Kg CO2, Energy use MJ, Land use Meters squared, Water represented in Liters. All units are Equivalent units. Source of data Heller and Keoleian, 2018.

Above is a graphical representation of a life cycle analysis done by the center of sustainable systems at Michigan State University. It is abundantly clear that at all levels of resource use the BB burger uses considerably less than its equivalent in beef. The most striking difference is in water use. Beef cattle require about 1750 liters (450 gallons) per quarter pound of beef produced (USGS). Results from the Michigan state study describe that 1/4 lb of BB burger requires just 1 liter of water whereas 1/4 of beef requires a whopping 218 liters. You don’t need to care about the environment to understand the economics of using less raw materials to make the same amount of product.

So is beef on its way out? Well it would be a really good thing for the environment if the world transitioned off of a primary beef diet. As countries become wealthier they tend to eat more beef. It is a more expensive food and is seen as a status symbol all over the world. Americans and Argentinians eat the most beef and we have dedicated an enormous amount of land to the production of beef cattle. We have to have pasture for them to graze, corn for fattening, transportation to and from slaughter, and more transportation to your table. It is estimated that 59% of the land in the world is used either for grazing or growing animal feed for cattle. That is about the size of Asia and Africa combined just to make cows to eat!

If capitalism has taught us anything it is that the one that costs less will always win. So the answer is yes, beef is probably on its way out, and good riddance to it as well. We may look back on this time as the years earth was infatuated with cows. There are far better animals to cultivate that use less land, and there are now far better technologies to create food that looks, tastes and even feels like beef, with 90% less impact.

Citations

Heller and Keolian 2018, Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger Life Cycle Assessment, Center for Sustainable Systems University of Michigan, http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/publication/CSS18-10.pdf

USGS water use for agriculture, https://water.usgs.gov/edu/activity-watercontent.php
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, Land use for cattle, http://www.fao.org/3/ar591e/ar591e.pdf

Image of cows https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cattle_on_pasture#/media/File:Ferme_de_Gramont_(17).JPG

Shoal Creek, Downtown

There is an almost endless list of reasons not to have open waterways that pass through major cities. They collect trash, can flood nearby buildings, they erode away embankments, and can be a general all around mess. On the other hand there are numerous reasons why you should have open waterways downtown. They are visually appealing, provide a site for recreation within a city, and are a hideaway for wildlife in an otherwise natural desert. Shoal creek downtown is a little bit of each of those things.

Shoal creek originates near the Domain in North Austin from an underground spring. Previously it was the western border of Austin in 1887, with little existing westward besides camps and Native Americans. Early landowners on the creek were hesitant to build nearby because of the frequent flooding. However, over time as land became more and more valuable the watershed was divided and sold. Currently it is estimated that 55% of the shoal creek watershed is covered by impervious surfaces. Presently, water management downtown seems to be working well as there have been few major floods. The most recent occurred in 2015 with major flooding to adjacent businesses. The only major flood previous to that was in 1981. Since 2015 major construction projects have been undertaken to collect and filter rainwater within the city.

Keeping the creek clean downtown seems like an insurmountable task, the city has set a precedent for responding to any questionable water quality calls. If you call the city with a concern they respond quickly to trace the location of the “murky water”. In 2016 there was one lawsuit which resulted in a misdemeanor charge against a construction company for pollution. The major concern listed on the city website seems to be trash and pet waste. As all cities around the US battle against a Wall-e like trashpocalypse, Austin is doing much of the same. Austin plans to take the plastic bag ban back to the Texas legislature this year in hopes to ban single use plastics once again. The best thing you can do is make sure your trash ends up in a bin, or well, just use less of it.

Birds nest downtown comprised partially of plastic bags.

Small White Heron under a bridge

The mouth of Shoal creek as it enters the Colorado River

Using Art for Conservation

In its fourth year of existence the Waller creek show is a massive community fundraiser for the Waller Creek Conservancy. It occurs over 9 nights and includes light based art installations in some of the dark and dingy corners of the creek as it passes through and under downtown Austin. Along with art there are numerous venues along the way that are hosting events in which some of the funds go to the Waller conservancy. When it comes to good ideas, I would give a huge pat on the back to the Waller conservancy for putting this together.

The mission of the Waller Conservancy is to restore Waller creek and create a chain of urban parks that span the length of the creek. Their project is currently under construction and will include 37 acres of park with 3 miles of walk or bike trails. The Waller Conservancy has already placed a huge emphasis on art within the community. The stretch of parkland boasts not one but two art installations by the contemporary artist Ai Weiwei. This along with rotating art makes Waller creek an amazing outdoor space.

Cities all over the world face some of the same dilemmas when it comes to water management. As cities grew, having a creek passing through downtown was both a flooding danger, and an eyesore. Keeping it clean from trash and debris was nearly impossible and often the stench would turn anyone away. Many urban creeks or rivers were buried underground to prevent both of the above issues. However, just like you would soon die if buried underground indifinetley, creeks will do the same. Without sunlight and oxygen a buried creek soon becomes lifeless, nothing more than water passing under the city above. A new movement occurring is to “daylight” buried creeks opening them back up to the sun and restoring the biodiversity within them.

Though Waller creek was never buried underground, the need for its “restoration” implies that at one point it existed in a different state than the present. Waller creek spans only 6 miles from its emergence to the delta with the Colorado river, but it passes through a dense urban landscape on its journey. The banks of the creek were once rolling pasture filled with trees and vegetation, the majority of it owned by Louis Horst and sold in 1874 (TSHA). Since that sale the land has been divided over and over to allow for more dense development. In 1969 the first major effort to preserve Waller creek ended in a riot as large old growth trees were cut down to expand UT Austin’s football stadium (TSHA).

So how does Waller creek measure up when it comes to water quality? We are going to look at dissolved oxygen and lead levels of the water to get a general idea of how the creek is doing. The CDC estimates that lead levels should be below 15ug/L for water to be safe to drink. Out of 120 surface water sample sites, 62 reported levels of lead above 15ug/L. That is a total of 52% of the sample sites are reporting lead above levels safe to drink. Austin never had a smelting plant located downtown and the two primary sources of lead in cities were leaded gasoline and lead paint. It seems there is still a bit of restoration to do in the heavy metal department. As for dissolved oxygen, we can get a feel for how much productivity is going on in the creek itself. For a healthy creek dissolved oxygen should be above 5mg/l. There were 1,263 sites tested for dissolved oxygen and 88% of them reported a dissolved oxygen level at or above 5mg/l. Excellent news for the aquatic life in Waller creek.

It is really impressive that Austin residents have taken such a passionate stance on their aquatic ecosystems. It is something that permeates up to the city government and has support from a wide diversity of people living in the city. The creek show was a success this year and here is to another good one next year.

Sources

TSHA- Texas State Historical Association https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/rbw11

CDC lead levels- https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=34&po=5

Water sampling data- https://data.austintexas.gov/Environment/Water-Quality-Sampling-Data/5tye-7ray/data

Waller creek conservancy- https://www.wallercreek.org/about/

Could you be carbon neutral?

After weeks of rain in the hill country, the smell of burning firewood and baking ovens is a new staple in our neighborhood. The weather does not really turn cold here until February but we like to take our cool weather where we can get it. This time of year is around the time where we hit the carbon cycle and climate change unit in my class. All of my students calculate their carbon footprint for their household, making an audit of their emissions, from waste to transportation. This year, in a very round about way, I was able to donate some store credit I had received to a carbon offset company. That got me thinking about one question, how hard would it really be to become carbon neutral?

Above is my household carbon emissions calculated on the EPA website. https://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/

The first thing anyone will tell you to do is calculate your emissions. I live in a 2 person household, we have a 1000 sq foot apartment that is relatively new. The weather in Austin is incredibly mild in the winter so we often spend about 2 months without using the heat or AC. All of that contributes to us having a really low household energy total. When it comes to transportation we still score below average, but we both work in the county and commute about 15 miles one way to work. The only thing that keeps our transportation low is the fact that we can carpool most days of the week. Finally our waste footprint is tiny, simply because Austin is on the leading edge of the quantity of household items you can recycle. Way to go!

Now that you have numbers, then what? Well for everything, you need a reference point. What should your carbon footprint be, and how can you get there.

With only an ounce of effort into research, anyone can find out that American households have some of the largest carbon footprints in the world. While a country like China emits more CO2 by far than the USA, their individual household footprint is about 7.5 tons. A study by an MIT class found that when you factor in city infrastructure into the average American household, a homeless person in the USA still emits about 8.5 tons per year.

While states like California are doing their part at the governmental level to cut emissions from energy production, what can you do to offset your emissions? It is unlikely that our household will be able to lower our carbon footprint more without a serious financial investment, or a job location change. Our only real option is to purchase carbon offsets from somewhere else.

First off let me tell you how carbon offsets do not work with a helpful drawn info-graphic below.

This is not how carbon offsets work, even though it would be super cool if it did.

The sad news is that there is no company that exists in which you can pay off your carbon footprint. The way carbon offset works is that you pay money to a company or organization, and they invest your money in either green technology or forestry. There are industrial carbon capture programs but they are primarily exist to capture emissions from power plants not simply from the atmosphere. There exists also such thing as a carbon credit and exchange but it is mostly available in Europe, and there is enough information on it for another entire blog post.

Choosing the forestry approach

You can pay money to an organization equal to that of your emissions, and they will plant trees to offset your carbon. First off there is literally nothing wrong with planting more trees. That investment is something that will always pay off. However, don’t look at this approach as a 1:1 for your carbon footprint. The trees planted in your name will take upwards of 10 years before they are effectively storing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Along with that, these organizations operate all over the world and it is hard to be sure that the trees planted in your name will survive upwards of 10 years or more. Go ahead and donate your money to these organizations, but consider making a cash donation to a local group that is planting trees in your city. This way you can visibly see the benefits of your investment, and even possibly volunteer.

Choosing the green technology approach

This option is not 1:1 with your carbon emissions but it will invest in a greener more efficient future. You can choose to go about this a few different ways but in each situation you are investing in a future that will one day be fossil free.

Stocks: Use your favorite investment website to invest in portfolios that feature green energy. This option has the possibility that your investment will not only pay off with new technology, but move the needle when it comes to creating a fossil free future. Checkout this article on Motley Fool about investing in green energy stocks.

3 Ways to Invest in a Renewable Energy Future -- The Motley Fool

While Apple stole headlines this summer, becoming the first company to reach a $1 trillion market cap, the renewable energy industry celebrated a different milestone beginning with the letter "t." According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), global capacity for solar and wind power generation has exceeded 1 terawatt.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/08/29/3-ways-to-invest-in-a-renewable-energy-future.aspx

Donations: several non profit organizations will use your donation to invest in energy infrastructure in developing countries. These countries have the most opportunity to invest in green technology because they are often not already committed to an energy type. The nonprofit Everybody solar is trying to bring solar panels to other nonprofits to create energy independence.

We have discussed the “how” but not the why yet. Should you attempt to offset your carbon footprint, even if it is not very successful at the moment? Yes, this is not a question of if you have the money or not, a 1$ donation is more than 0 and will move us one step forward to changing our future of climate change.

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jul/18/china-average-europe-carbon-footprint

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080428120658.htm

everybodysolar.org

Fall Butterflies

Its officially fall here in hill country which means pumpkin spice everything and fall butterflies. Every year, around October, various species of butterflies swarm the hill country. Most often people see them crossing roads in large groups headed in some unknown direction. I collected some photos and interesting tidbits on the most notable species that appear in early fall.

Photo taken by me in Piedra Herrada reserve, Mexico. December 2017

One of the rock stars of the insect world is by far the monarch butterfly. A migration route that takes them from Canada to Mexico, on altering generations, makes them an amazing creature. Think of all the obstacles they must pass through to make it to their destination. Cars, semi trucks, small children, birds with a taste for butterfly, bad weather and much more. These butterflies pass through Austin in October and are a sight to see. Luckily Austin has signed the Mayors Monarch Pledge, along with 300 other cities to complete 24 actions to protect the monarch. The monarchs will arrive in their winter home of Northern Mexico by December. I was lucky to be able to travel to one reserve last year and see them. It was incredible and I highly recommend it to anyone.

A very lovely monarch caterpillar, I snapped this photo on Sept 24 in Austin.

American Lady (painted lady) Wikimedia Commons (Derek Ramsey 2007) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/American_Lady_Vanessa_virginiensis_Upper_Wings_1609px.jpg

Easily confused with the monarch, the American Lady is a slightly smaller species that calls this area home. It can be seen on some of the same plants as the monarch, it is unable to survive cold winters so it thrives pretty well in the mild temperatures around Austin.

A Black Swallowtail, photo taken by me Oct 4 2018.

The Black Swallowtail is a striking butterfly that is large and catches your eye. This one was found in a garden located around a shopping center. Proof that a little bit of effort can go a long way to providing a habitat for species in our world. Surprisingly this species likes to lay eggs on some of our favorite kitchen herbs, dill, fennel and parsley. You wont see the Black Swallowtail migrate anywhere, it calls many places in the southern USA home.

To see some butterflies you need to hang out around pasture land in rural areas, anywhere with lots of greenery. This year has been a good year for butterflies but overall they are in decline. As we pave over our green spaces for new developments we are taking away habitat for the local species. The best thing you can do is diversify your garden. Plant pollinator friendly plants and let that garden get a little wild with some diversity of wildflowers.

The creek in your backyard

One time when I was around 12 I went to the ditch at the end of my street and climbed inside. I walked as far as I could in one direction. At one point I reached a tunnel that seemed to have no end. I could hear water flowing through, it echoed against the walls. There was a slight breeze coming from the inside, it smelled like mold or something dead. Walking below the neighborhood in that ditch was an exciting experience. It felt like I was a submarine captain piloting a ship in between houses, unsuspecting of their residents. At eye level with the foundation of their house I felt secret. I came back to that ditch many times, even though my parents were not fond of me frequenting it. My neighborhood ditch was different from the one you see above. It was completely cement with no plants, no fish or animals to be seen. You can imagine my surprise the first time I found this neighborhood ditch, realizing it was teeming with life.

The place you see in the photo was created out of necessity, but it was created with a lot of foresight. City planners know that drainage ditches must be built in neighborhood developments. However, they often look like the one in the neighborhood I grew up in. Why then, would someone go to the effort of constructing an almost completely natural creek bed? I did some internet searching and found out that there is a teeny tiny clause in the Austin building code that requires all drainage surfaces to be no greater than 45% impervious. This means that water has to be able to seep into the ground, no questions asked. Why on earth would this be important, why am I dedicating a whole blog post to this? This little line in the building code means that nature now has a tiny oasis in an otherwise harsh landscape that is suburbia. There is water in this creek almost all year round. There are fish, frogs, a plethora of other animals that call this place home. This is a space for them in a place we have created for us.

I regularly walk my dog down this road and she will often stop at the creek for a drink or hop in to cool off. For the past few weeks there has been a huge bull frog that sits on the ledge near the bridge. It will “bloop” into the water when we get just close enough for a glimpse. In the early morning you can see the barn swallows diving in to drink water. In the late evening the bats dive in and out of the treeline just above the water to catch bugs. After the week of rain the grass has been plowed over by the water, revealing all manner of creatures. If I were to name a specific goal for this blog it would be to show the average person that there is so much going on right under their nose. Right behind your house there is massive natural beauty and diversity that can be cultivated with a tiny bit of effort. This drainage ditch and the policy that created it, is an example of just that.

Photos taken by me
link to the Austin watershed city code http://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Planning/Rules/backup13_18.pdf
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The View

The 100 degree weather finally broke and the light on Saturday was heavenly. I went out and discovered what almost everyone with a camera has already figured out. Austin is very photogenic. 

I am currently reading a book called "The Last Child in the Woods" which outlines how new generations of kids are spending less time outdoors and why. I havent reached the end yet so I dont have any conclusions for you. Its full of really amazing quotes and passages that I find myself lingering on. One in particular is that "within the city you can't hear, because you hear everything, so you end up hearing nothing."  It's the absence of noise that makes us open our ears to the sounds around us. 

On the trails that line Lady Bird Lake I find myself listening to the sounds. The most dominant is the crunch crunch of runners and bikers on the limestone gravel. People chatting, talking about their week. Dogs panting, inhaling and exhaling smells around them. Paddles dipping in and out of the water. Swoosh swish of water as the wind blows it against the cement posts. Animals scraping and scratching at the leaves under the bushes. 

All photos taken by me. 

Preserving Wild Spaces Through Design

Lets start out with a question, how much of your backyard would you be willing to give up if it meant you could live on a greenbelt? Think about it, hiking and biking trails, wildlife at your doorstep. Would you give up some of your private space for a shared green space? I am going to go ahead and lay out all of my biases right now. I am completely biased towards shared green spaces. I love them far more than a backyard any day of the week. I purposefully live in an apartment, without a yard, specifically to avoid the financial and time sucking burden a backyard brings. It is possible that the quantity of time I spent mowing and raking my backyard as a teenager might have something to do with this. 

Are backyards going away? Well sort of. The backyard is decreasing in size, partly because as land prices increase houses are getting larger but lots are getting smaller (1). A second trend occurring is urbanization in general. As land prices increase and cities expand outwards, houses are being replaced with high rise apartments and thus the yard per family idea is silently going away (2). Grassy lawns made up almost 2% of total land area in 2005, more than all of our corn crops combined (3). Aside from being a huge amount of land, it takes nearly 7 billion gallons of water per day to keep all of that grass irrigated. All in all lawns do end up acting as a carbon sink, so it’s not all bad right? (4).

Above is a google maps snapshot of what I would call a "suburbia desert". There is a single tiny park on the Northwest side of the map. There is no shared green space that is within walking distance for many residents of this neighborhood. 

If you happen to live in a city that understands the incredible importance of mixed use spaces then you are in luck. You probably already have quite a few of these around. As the city becomes more urban the number of those spaces are likely to increase. If you live in a city that does not see the value in these spaces (looking at you Corpus Christi), it is hard to convince city planners to design these in the building code. City parks and baseball fields are not the only thing here, I am talking about specifically designed wildlife corridors within a city. This natural area can have considerably more uses than a single backyard and can supply more habitat to native species.

Most backyard owners are not thinking specifically about natural habitat when they landscape or mow. Instead they are often thinking about usable space for family activities. A shared space can incorporate all of the above. A family space, playing fields, wildlife habitat, water recharge and much more. By sacrificing backyard space developers can create a communal area that brings people in contact with each other and nature. As we build new cities and expand our growing ones, it is important that developers plan these green spaces into the design. It would also be imperative to connect spaces from one neighborhood to another to allow for wildlife movement.

The photo above is a google maps snapshot of neighborhoods that all share a greenbelt. The greenbelt connects to larger parks on both the west and east side. Nearly all residents are within walking distance to a shared green space. This happens to be centered around a floodplain but why not everywhere?

These ideas are new to suburbia dwellers that thrive on private backyards and have no desire for contact with their neighbors. You should hear some of the lunchroom chat when I bring this up with my coworkers. “Share a space with my neighbors? I don't even like them!” As we transition into denser cities and increase our desire to conserve resources, shared green spaces are an important addition. We must figure out ways to better live with nature and not sequester it to one part of the city. There is an idea that the urban city and wild nature are separate. Wildlife occurs "somewhere else" and requires a long drive to attend. When we sequester nature to tiny islands in the city, it is either over used or not used at all due to inaccessibility. Both are equally negative.  “We are the engineers of our cities, when and where we decide to let nature back in is up to us”-David Attenborough.

Sources for

1.McGill, Andrew, Lawn Census https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/lawns-census-bigger-homes-smaller-lots/489590/
2Weissmann,Jordan Urbanization http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/03/04/u_s_urbanization_big_cities_are_booming.html
3. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/6019
4.https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Lawn/lawn3.php

The Zebra Mussels are Here...

To tell the story of zebra mussels in Texas is to tell the story of invasive species all over the world. Before recreational boating was affordable and common, species had to be transported across the ocean in shipping vessels. These species usually only took up residence in areas that had international ports. The idea that an unwanted species could take root in a new place was relatively unknown. This was especially hard to understand because botanists were trying to grow various desirable species for agriculture and having a really hard time of it. It is often the small overlooked species that end up doing the most damage.

Native to Southern Russia and Ukraine, the zebra mussel is perhaps the most well known invasive species in the United States. It has just this past year entered into Central Texas waterways and is making its way south towards our most beloved Barton Springs. After its emergence in Lake Travis in 2017, the population has exploded lining the shore of the lake and increasing visibility in the water. Texas Parks and wildlife is scrambling to get the word out to boaters to be extremely careful about drying and draining boats (including kayaks) before they move between waterways.

Humans are exceptionally good at making species go extinct, you could say it is one of our most practiced skills.  It should be pretty easy for us to control these invaders, but we have yet to come up with any really effective ideas.  Some progress has been made on the invasive Lionfish by beginning to serve them in local Florida restaurants. Unfortunately, zebra mussels are very small and they are not recommended for eating.  In their native habitat these mussels have around 70 local species of predators ranging from birds to crustaceans. Here in the United States, scientists have observed only a handful of organisms willing to eat the mussels, none have yet to prove they can control the population.

It feels as if we are on the very edge of a population explosion. We don’t yet know the extent of devastation the zebra mussels could have on the delicate Barton Springs habitat.  We do know that it will not be good for any organisms involved. Imagine the edges of Barton pool lined with mussels, pushing out native species. The floor of Barton creek full of dead and decaying plant matter, suffering from lack of nutrients.  It is a fate that is nearly imminent, we can only do our best to hold it off for now.

Sources for this post

When they arrived to Texas https://www.kxan.com/news/local/travis-county/explosion-in-zebra-mussel-population-worries-lake-travis-divers/1163637643

Lionfish tacos: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/food-restaurants/recipes/87505711-132.html

Local predators: https://wwx.inhs.illinois.edu/resources/inhsreports/nov-dec98/aidebar/

The sound of summer.

The most memorable sound of summer is not that Journey album that you had to stop playing because cars don’t have tape decks anymore. It is the rhythmic and soothing sound of the cicada. If you live in a place where you don’t hear cicadas in the summer, you probably don’t have enough exposed soil or trees around you and you need to move. Located all over the United States these insects spend most of their life underground as a grub (nymph phase) and emerge to serenade us (rather lady cicadas) and mate. You have probably heard of the species (Magicicadas) that spend a whopping 17 years underground before gracing us land lubbers with their song. However, there are numerous other species that live only one year and then emerge.

Tibicen superbus Wikimedia commons

They appear in large numbers and seem to swarm the forest or neighborhood all at once. Sometime in May when the weather is just getting warm, before the humidity hits, the cicadas emerge and sing their first song. The first night may be slightly quieter than normal as they are all still growing their wings and drying out. However, as the weeks continue the sounds grow louder each night. Something happens, unknowingly, that time of year. Our thoughts turn to ice cream, poolside bbq’s, and shorts. The days stretch in length and it seems we are given the gift of more time. That sound to me meant an extra hour of biking afterschool and more time spend shoeless in the backyard.  Now it means much of the same, hot days and warm nights.

Texas sees a few species of cicadas but the most common one is the Tibicen superbus. If you catch one on the ground their beautiful green color is noticeable against the brown soil.

sources

http://www.cicadamania.com/where.html