Winter Happenings...

Hello dearest friends,

We've been traveling! We took our little Winnebago Itasca Spirit, Toyota out for a journey south to warmer lands...

and found tremendous beauty in northern Georgia...

and incredible concentrations of life in southern GA.

Our three cats traveled with us and found refuge in the sunshine...

our laps...

and the stillness of the camper. (Moving, not so much.)

The cold found us in southern GA and we had to make our way home anyway so we headed into deeper cold in northern Alabama to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Tens of thousands of Sandhill Cranes, one Whooping Crane, thousands of waterfowl and overwintering songbirds made our quick stop not enough. We cannot wait to go back!

Now, we delight in the frost and ice of February in Ohio...

and more than cherish any sunshine that illumines our little patch called home.

The winter treasures we behold are more subtle than the spring and summer abundance we share, but with an observational eye, the beauty of warm days finds us in the healthy and strong cocoon of a polyphemus or luna moth overwintering on the native American Hazelnut we planted many moons ago. The winds have long since dropped this cocoon into the leaf litter below the plants reminding us daily why we don't clean up leaves. The diverse and abundant world of life in the leaf litter zone is more beautiful than we ever dreamed; truly the fodder for wonder.

We celebrated the joy of a 53 year old birthday boy swinging in the snow and smiling all the while.

And of course, we stratified the phenomenal native American Persimmon seeds we collected with grand hopes of great germination and strong root growth, which we will offer for sale next fall during their dormant period.

Two books we are currently devouring that we highly recommend if you want to help save the world or just add great enjoyment to your life:

Native Plant Agriculture Vol.1 by Indigenous Landscapes
Nature's Best Hope by Doug Tallamy

And finally, we are loving our dearest, oldest coon cat - Bounder. She is aging and life is shifting for her and we remember to hold our loves as tight as we can. Life isn't going any slower and for that incredible gift of clarity, we discern what is important and what isn't really, at all. Our mantra regarding much of life now is Good Enough and then we spend that "extra" time living and loving and embracing, gratefully and with reciprocity and joy.

Summer Happenings: Monarchs, Promethea Moths, Art, Family & Friends

It's summer and we love it! Overall, it's been a very cool summer so our winter squash and tomatoes are just sort of sitting in the garden waiting for heat. We will see how much food we get from them this year. We are making a high tunnel and lean-to greenhouse this fall to help with season extension in different ways so next year, we hope, will be easier. We will post here as we progress on these projects.

We are seeing lots of cool nature stuff though, including monarchs - finally! There are lots of little eggs on our milkweed, which is just so dang exciting. Remember the Monarch Tent from last year?

We aren't doing that this year to try and keep disease low, but continue to work to improve their habitat here and work with township officials to safeguard roadside milkweed. Sometimes a little pink flagging and a friendly ask can work magic.

Steve found a fabulous find on our Tulip Poplar - the super beautiful Promethea Moth caterpillar:

We've found 4 on the tree so far and are enjoying watching the leaves disappear knowing they are raising one of the magnificient silkmoths that continues to struggle. (Here's an older article on this topic.)

Want to see a 1.5 minute video on this sweet little tree of ours featuring these caterpillars? Click here.

In other nature news, I met on several occasions one of the huge, fabulous Fishing Spiders (Dolomedes tenebrosus) in our basement. This one lives primarily in wooded areas and ventures indoors fairly frequently. They eat most anything they can find and subdue.

A Clymene moth (Haploa clymene) was spotted on one of our Red Cedars we recently planted for a wind break. We saw dozens of these many years ago at Swamp Angel Nature Preserve in IN so it was fun to find one again. The caterpillars feed on Eupatorium species, oak, peach and willow and the land grows all those here.

Summer is also a great time for visiting with friends and we are so grateful to everyone who documents since we always manage to forget. We met up with our favorite Art Grange folks to spend the day exploring art (clay/fiber, willow) and nature at an open house in Roseville Ohio. If you are local, make sure you attend in the future...it's a beautiful and inspiring place.

Michelle and I were so charmed we started flying around like butterflies and birds!

The willow sculptures, fences, gates, baskets, etc. are so so cool. Steve is pondering this, of course.

We traveled to see family and friends; family and friends came to see us in Ohio. Life is good. Here's Jennifer's family:

Nope, we aren't twins...two years apart. Love this girl!

We continue to work our native plant nursery (thanks to everyone who has already helped spread these plants out into the world to work their magic!) and soak up all the goodness of life. The insect chorus happening now is one of our most favorite annual events. More soon. Take care everyone.

After the AZT (Rockhound, Bluebonnets, Lady Bird Johnson, Natchez Trace)!

Through the chaos and serendipity of getting off trail, we don't have photo documentation of much of what happened, but huge thanks to the ultra cool Randy for giving us a lift to Saguaro National Park and camping with us for a night. We hope Yellowstone is fabulous!

Thanks to Noah with Uber for getting us to Tucson and the only available rental car turned van and to the fabulous Ian for the lift south and stashing our car during our hike. Huge thanks, again, to Deborah for hosting us at your home and letting us regroup and love on sweet, sweet Max and admire Leo from afar.

Our trip East landed us first amongst the epic wildflower bloom near the Florida Mountains in southern New Mexico.

Mexican Poppy:

Sumac:

Dalea:

Happy explorer:

Wild Flax:

The fantastic wildflowers, sunsets, and time to be still worked some magic on us once again.

  
The ease of a table is much appreciated after many days without!

We don't know this cactus and it doesn't look right for the horse crippler, but we love it.

Variable Checkerspot nectaring on Coreopsis:

A stop in Carlsbad reunited us with very special friends we've missed dearly since we moved away in 2009. Huge hugs to John (Ocarina, Tongue Drum and all sorts of goodness - Maker) and Gosia (owner of the fabulous Heart Rock Massage Therapy.) This photo is by Gosia documenting our time together so we know it really happened. ☺ Thank you sweet girl for hosting us in your welcoming and inspiring home!

The Texas Hill Country showed us the wildflowers we hoped for. Here's the famous Texas Bluebonnets:

Bluebonnets and Paintbrush make for a dramatic color display:

The new growth on the Prickly Pear Cactus is so brilliantly green...the color of true plant magic.

The Live Oaks are really something to experience. Ancient trees hold our hearts (and yours?) so now is the time to start planting all slow growing trees for future generations.

Even though we've seen Antelope Horns many times, each time we squeal with delight. Look at this beauty:

We are HUGE pie lovers and a roadside sign advertising homemade pies had Steve careening off the road into a small driveway to take advantage of homemade deliciousness shortly after a very stressful turtle rescue (which we successfully completed without anyone getting hurt). The pie was a perfect treat as was our conversation and inspiriation from the Pie Lady. We are always grateful to cross paths with people making their own, unique way in the world out of a place of necessity and sometimes because of their commitment to their own life desires.

This post is all about thanks and this one goes to Lady Bird Johnson for her vision and love of flowers and wild places. If you get to Austin, TX, go check out the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. We were more than impressed and the food in the cafe is delicious too!

Louisiana and Mississippi, we are so glad we got to meet you. We will be back.

The Natchez Trace is a beautiful drive, with three free campgrounds along its route. We highly recommend this drive for its beauty, history, ease of access to small communities and slow pace. This is a route that makes you think about the craziness of many of our interstates and ways we choose to live now. Hmmmm. 

So much happened on this trip, but this gives you a small taste. We are excited to share all the planting happening on our three little wild acres here in Ohio so tune in next week.