Little Luxuries
Paying attention but not to the chaos.
I’m in the thick of Maycember around here, though it was really AprilMaycember when you pair it with a work project that left me working overtime (something I rarely do) and little brainpower for the last month. I came up for air late last week and thought, “Oh goodie, I get to write again!” However, it has taken me until now to really begin forming thoughts to write here. I did manage to resurrect my garden newsletter, , a few days ago after a year hiatus. It’s a start.
So, excessive work, no brain power, the end of school, and a big end of school at that as my 4th grader is leaving elementary for intermediate next year and we’re hitting a transition period. Cue all-the-feels, as they say. Last time for this, last time for that. In August it will be first time for this, first time for that. Whew!
Where has that left me this last month? I’m still working through the last bits of hiking for my guidebook and so we’ve been hiking and camping and hitting up spots that have been left for last. I’m staring down lands that I wanted to explore more and realizing that what I have is fine and I don’t need to revisit some of these places again, at least for the book. Others I’ve been re-configuring in my mind so I can avoid adding in more hiking to cover them, cough cough, I’m looking at you Lone Star Trail. And of course, the bigger beasts that are left are either trails that are longer or have been inaccessible due to closures (staring at you oh, wait, it looks like the Big Sandy Trail is finally open again! Wahoo!), or trails that are likely to be underwater due to spring rains (and/or swarmed with mosquitoes) like the couple of trails I have left in the Trinity NWR.
I’ll get there but it is time to get cracking on the writing and map making around here.
I’ll be honest, I have almost completely shut myself off from updates on the environmental catastrophe that is this federal administration. I see things that are posted on social media but I have stopped calling and writing and interacting with it in any major capacity. I feel like I really put myself out there in 2023 with Fairfield Lake State Park and gained absolutely nothing by it. I’m not saying advocacy isn’t effective, it certainly is, but it is so long term that I’ve had to pull back and let others lead where I cannot. I thought I might be able to cover every assault here on the newsletter, like I did back then, but I’ve been unable to bring myself do it because of how relentless it has been. That, and this is basically a hobby, writing here, and while I have a few paid subscribers, this doesn’t pay my bills, like say, if I was instead doing advocacy work for any of the major environmental orgs out there, who put out press releases and go to events and do the Big Work. It might be worth the stress if that was the case. I’m still working through this, how to balance advocacy writing with natural history writing.
I think what kills me most, and my husband will attest to this after I almost lost my shit a few weeks ago while we were having a most chill time at the beach—I was reading Texas Land Ethics, something I’ve been slow reading for the last year, and had reached the last chapter about the Big Thicket and wanted to just walk into the Gulf of Mexico and never return—was how much effort has been involved in getting us to the point where we are at now for conservation and even the small hint of a positive environmental legacy and we’re just out there throwing it away for “nothing” (profits). I was sitting there as the waves rhythmically rolled onto shore reading about how long it took to even get the Big Thicket protected in the first place: the petitions, the meetings with congressional representatives, the negotiations with timber companies, the personal sacrifice many of the advocates took on to protect something they loved so much…and here we were facing the potential for the NPS to just start offloading some of their non “Park” lands to states or private entities because of the current administration. The fact that the Big Thicket, a “Preserve”, might end up on the chopping block because it wasn’t a “Park”, well, yeah, I took a walk down the beach to gather my thoughts because short of going to one of those rage rooms I keep hearing about, there’s not much I can do other than constantly write representatives who plainly do not care.
I mean, yes, the reality is civil disobedience, but I think we all have to figure out what we’re willing to do and sacrifice on that end and I’ve not worked that part out yet. Or, that we arrived to that destination in the course of things. But, I think it is coming.
What I’m doing instead of paying attention to the attack on our environment is appreciating what is in front of me. Many beautiful things still exist right here, right now. We’re often the only ones out exploring some of these areas and I find myself being thankful for that, the quiet ability to explore on our own and appreciate these places for what they are, but also despondent that so few people know what is in their own backyards.
I came across the alligator snapping turtle a few photos above on the Saturday before Mother’s Day, and I was the only one of the three of us (my husband, son, and myself) who got to see it. My son and husband were down at another part of the creek and I had walked down to this small tributary to look for the rare plant we were trying to locate. I was contemplating how to jump across the creek and out of the corner of my eye I thought I could leverage myself across with whatever it was in the creek. I thought it was a piece of trash or an old culvert but when I turned to really focus in on it I saw the object for what it really was and stood there astounded for a few seconds!
I come across snappers, common or alligator, so rarely that this was a really special moment, particularly because we were so close to a road. I thought about texting my husband but we’d had cell service issues at the previous location we were at on this same creek, and so instead of digging my phone out of my pocket to text, I opted to try to yell a bit so I could get their attention. That wasn’t the smartest thing because Chonky realized they’d been made by the Scary Human and started doing a three-point-turn to escape to deeper water. By the time my husband and son made it over to the bridge to look down and see what I was calling about, Chonky had vanished into the dark tannin waters of the creek. May you live a long life, friend.
As any die-hard naturalist, I often get excited about finding a species that has long been on my list to see. While we did not even up locating the plant species we were hoping to find on this particular creek that weekend, I did end up finding Clematis reticulata arenicola (see note under photo, taxon change), netleaf leather flower, and did a little dance of joy when I realized what I was seeing. I often file away plant species in the back of my brain to look for when I’m in particular regions and hope that some day I’ll end up coming across it when I’m there. It wasn’t even on my radar that I might come across it that day so it was a delightful surprise! With only 136 observations on iNaturalist in Texas, this is not a super common species here, though certainly not the most uncommon. It’s all about the right habitat and timing.
If you want to talk about things that grow under people’s noses, we can talk all day about mosses and liverworts and other non-vascular plants. I’m slowly learning both of them and if I ever get around to dedicating time to microscopy, maybe I would actually get better about identification of them to species. Until such time, I mostly use my macro lens attachment on my phone to take photos and upload them to iNaturalist for later identification by myself or someone more knowledgeable. I’m always struck by how many species you can find on any given tree in some locations. Life on top of life on top of life! I mean, just in that photo above there is the liverwort, either another liverwort or moss on the left, a lichen beneath those, plus the tree itself!
I’ll end with this last photo because I don’t know how to encapsulate it into words. This is the Jack Gore Baygall Unit of the Big Thicket and well, it’s a unit you need to explore by water during certain times of the year, such as now when the Neches is high and back channels and bottoms are full to the brim. I love swamps and wetlands to an extent that I don’t think there are many others on the list who would join me in that love. Perhaps that’s why I adore them, very few people are out there. Forget Angels Landing. Give me a remote oxbow in a cypress-tupelo swamp. Let me hear a pileated woodpecker pounding on a dead stump, echoing across the swamp.
That’s all I need—and for it to be protected in perpetuity from development.
We have to get loud and louder
I love the Big Thicket and have been there probably a dozen times, mostly the Turkey Creek and Big Sandy units. It’s a bitter pill that these kleptocrats want to sell parts of it off. But, like people injured and politically imprisoned, it was predictable the night he was elected. I need to get in another visit and we each need to write, even if we’re unsuccessful. Your forthcoming book will be more important than just a trail guidebook, and I sure look forward to it. Hang in there.