keely – Page 13 – State of Wilderness

Summer Summary

When I last wrote, the summer seemed full of possibilities yet, and now it is winding down. Only two weeks until the start of another school year. As we all expected, summer’s heat has turned up the dial and we are all sweltering. However, it hasn’t really stopped us from playing outside, because we are crazy like that.

Perhaps in a different year, we would have lost all interest in outdoor activities, but three current activities are keeping us motivated: a step challenge at my work, my goal to get to 4000 geocache finds by my 41st birthday (31 finds/37 days left), and the advent of Pokemon Go. I realize that Pokemon Go is one of those things that you either love, hate, or laugh at, but it is a perfect way to inspire my ten year old who really needs more exercise (and can’t stand geocaching anymore) to get out of the house and be active. It is a lure, to borrow a term from the game, to encourage him to go for a walk around the neighborhood, at a local park, or even our nearby malls on particularly hot days, so I can still get my steps in for the step challenge but yet not feel guilty about leaving my children to work on it.

These are our top ten places we have discovering and playing at this summer since I last wrote (not an all-inclusive list, and besides the places I mentioned last time):

McClendon Park: I have decided this is one of my favorite finds of the summer. It has a nice playground for all ages, a splashpad, geocaches, pokestops and gyms for PG, and also it is right next to a rookery where tons of birds have made their roost, making for exciting bird watching as well.
Pine Mill Ranch: this is a neighborhood near my house that I have been geocaching in by bike, sometimes alone and sometimes with my friend and her kids. One day, we were really hot towards the end and found the splashpad. Playing in it really cooled us down, and later I planned a Hike It Baby walk there, but was disappointed that only one other person showed up. This seems to be my fate with planning Hike It Baby walks, so I have kind of given up on that myself, although Jason has been taking the kids on tons of Hike It Baby walks since he has been spending the summer as a stay-at-home dad.
Katy Mills Mall: the mall is not new to us, but we rediscovered how much we enjoyed it after Pokemon Go. It has a ton of pokemon stuff going on, but also it is a nice air-conditioned venue to get some exercise, and someday we plan to spend a whole day there, perhaps paying to ride the train and the giant robotic stuffed animals, to sample all the foods and check out all the stores. For now, we mostly play and window-shop. We also had a good time re-exploring Memorial City Mall, although the play area was very crowded. There was this special thing going on while we were there in which we found this giant Pokemon exhibit and had to take a pic of the real-life pokeball.
Fort Bend Discovery Center: This is the new branch of the Houston Children’s Museum, and it is much closer and much less crowded. We decided to buy a family membership after a nice visit there last weekend with our friends (that I met online last year, through a baby app and then via Facebook and Hike It Baby). These pics are the kids having fun discovering all the exhibits. The Tot Spot was awesome – a safe, air conditioned place with all kinds of toddler friendly activities. When I was in there, I felt like I was really doing something good for my kids. Jason will probably take Sebastian back there regularly during the week now that we have a membership and until he starts working again.
Rick Rice Park: lots of pokemon activity
Westgreen Park: I discovered this little gem when we were going back and forth to Rick Rice Park in the past few weeks. It has a playground and a splash pad, and Sebastian really enjoyed playing there. There is no playground at Rick Rice, so this is a good way to reward him for being a good boy and putting up with being pushed around in the stroller or driving around looking for imaginary monsters
Quillian Center (Noah’s Ark Pool): I took these younger guys there on a day around Fourth of July weekend, during a time when Jason was taking AJ to urgent care to look at the full body rash he had acquired. We had a lot of fun and I would take the kids back, but probably not until next year when Sebastian is a little more able to keep up with the bigger kids.
Ervan Chew Park: On the surface, this park is pretty basic, but we had a good time here playing on the playground, in the splashpad, catching Pokemon, and watching the dogs in the dog park next door. Plus there was this water fountain incident that made us laugh:
Houston Zoo: although I will say, I am not going back here until it cools down, because I almost died when we went in the middle of the day on a July Saturday. I sweated so much. The splash pad was fun, though, and we have free admission (membership) until November. We’ll be back, just not until temps are below 90.
The elementary school: the school Kaleb goes to is not that far from our house, and it has a really nice playground for Sebastian to play on in the evenings (particularly summer evenings). He is obsessed with playing ball right now, so this is a good place to take him in the evenings to let him chase soccer balls around in the grass, or learn how to bounce basketballs.

Staying Cool in H-Town

You haven’t heard much from me on here lately. It’s not because I haven’t been thinking about you. It’s just that we haven’t had many nature experiences lately. First it was the storms and flood that kept us in, and then it was the heat and the bugs. It has turned into that time of year when those of us in Houston turn to the refuge of TVs and ACs and avoid the outdoors.

However, you know me, I’m not going to stay in for long, and my desire for adventure is going to led me out of the house. So my goal, then, is to find ways to have adventure that also keep my kids cool when we are doing it. These are the ways we have found to do that lately this summer:

Splash pads: we have visited three splash pads so far this summer, but I plan to take the kids to more. One splash pad that we went to with a Hike It Baby group is a public one I would recommend to anyone, with words of advice. It is located in Nottingham Park at 14205 Kimberley Ln, Houston, TX 77079. This park can get busy, so be prepared for that. There might be times that are better than others to go. The girl who hosted the Hike It Baby there said it was not busy on a Tuesday morning when she went, but on the Friday morning we were there, there seemed to be 2-3 field trip buses that showed up. Still, the kids had fun. There is a playground attached to it, and I think next time I will let the kids play their hearts out FIRST, and then cool down in the splashpad. The time we went, they did that backwards, and slides don’t work as well in wet bathing suits, plus we ended up having to go back to the splash pad to wash off and cool down after.

We also went to some neighborhood splash pads (Grand Lakes, Pine Mill Ranch), but apparently the residents get really worked up about non-residents sharing these, especially in Grand Lakes. The people in Pine Mill Ranch didn’t seem to care either way, and their splash pad is really nice, so perhaps we will just keep going there. Some that we have planned to go to still this summer: McClendon Park, Cullen Park, Discovery Green, Wiley Park, perhaps the Aquarium and Zoo ones.

Pools: we have been frequenting the outdoor pool at our local YMCA. It is a great pool for babies and young ones, but of course, only open to members. The good news is that YMCA memberships are city-wide, so if you are a member of one Y, you could use the pool at any Y in the greater Houston area. There is also an indoor pool that we sometimes use there.

We also have a pool in our backyard, but I have only taken the kids to swim in there once because I kind of don’t want Sebastian to even know about it. He loves swimming and he is entirely too brave and independent for his own good. We are trying to make sure he learns how to swim safely and early. He took classes at the YMCA and now he is taking classes once a week at Pengu Swim School, but he is still a toddler who doesn’t know how to hold his breath yet.

An awesome pool for little ones that we recently swam at was at the Best Western Plus hotel in Austin, off 35 at the Oltorf exit. That is a great hotel, so if anyone is going to Austin, I could not recommend it enough. Their pool had a baby pool that was one foot deep, and separated from the main pool by a ledge that could easily be passed over by a parent to take the kids from one side to the other. We went back and forth a lot when we stayed there last weekend.

Some other pools that we plan to visit this summer include the Noah’s Ark pool at the Quillian Center in the Westchase area, the Bellaire Town pool, Rob Fleming in the Woodlands, and probably Grandma’s pool.

Children’s Museum Flow Works: we had a free pass to the Children’s Museum and Sebastian had a great time playing with the pipes and PVC elbows in the flow works area, and there is enough splash off that his shirt was quite wet and he stayed cool while playing there.

Beach: we took the kids to Galveston once this summer, maybe we will go again. Sebastian LOVED it and was quite brave about the waves. Kaleb always loves the beach, that is his happy place, and in fact that is why we went: to celebrate his birthday.

Other ideas I have on how to stay cool while having adventures with the children this summer include visiting the Galleria, downtown tunnels, museums, and the gem show again.

I have been doing a bit of geocaching alone on my bike (to give me some exercise but not expose the kids to too much heat). We have a bike trailer but it does seem to get Sebastian hot quickly, so we are not using it when the sun is shining down. Maybe we will go on evening bike rides, and perhaps now that Jason has a different schedule he can take morning bike rides towing Sebastian. Jason is going to be a stay at home/work from home dad for a bit now, and there are some places he will most likely be taking the kids to have some fun indoors this summer.

I want to share the adventures we all have, and hope that we can resume hiking and forest explorations in September.

Sand Creek Farm

Over the weekend, we visited Sand Creek Farm with the Hike It Baby Houston group. This was a fun day trip (that was supposed to be a camping trip, but more on that later) that taught us some things and gave us some neat experiences that I wanted to share with you.

Sand Creek Farm is a medium sized natural dairy located in Cameron, Texas, west of Hearne off of a dirt road highway that branches off of 979. The farm was started in 2005 by owners Ben and Alysha Godfrey, and they run it with the help of their five daughters. They feed their cows on grass only, and produce raw milk, cheese and yogurt that you can buy from their store, as well as home grown meat and other yummy foods.

On the property, you will also find a companion business, Sustainable Farm Supply, an aquaponics facility that they run as well as teach classes at, so that others can learn how to run a similar business. Aquaponics is a system of growing crops and fish using water that cycles through both areas, bringing nutrients from one to the other. The plants are held by styrofoam boards with holes in them for their roots, which dangle in the water.

During our day here, we took a tour of the farm by riding in the wagon that Ben uses for this purpose, pulled by a team of draft horses. We heard about their hay growing operation, and then visited the aquaponics nursery area. It was very fascinating to hear about and see in action. Kaleb’s favorite part was holding the caterpillars that were found on a dill plant that Ben was using to show an example of protected vs unprotected plants. Sebastian’s favorite part was trying to pick up any miscellaneous objects from the floor of the nursery and stick them in his mouth.

This pony's name is Spotted Bear — This pony’s name is Spotted Bear

After visiting the nursery, we paid a visit to the dairy and listened to Ben explain the process of making cheese and the virtues of raw milk. We stepped into the milking parlor and heard an explanation of that process, then walked back into the general store to have samples of the cheese and yogurt, as well as purchase dairy and meat items if one desired.

Most of the time we were on the farm, we spent near the canopy tents that were erected for our group to have a place for the babies to play. Several blankets were spread out with toys on them, and nearby was a hole with dirt and digging toys for the kids to go to town in. A bubble machine blew pretty much continuously, and one of the farmers daughters rode her pony about and occasionally got off to allow the babies to take pictures with her pony. Sebastian really enjoyed his time here. His favorite parts were the sand pit and chewing on the various bubble wands that were laid out for kids to blow bubbles with.

Jason had skipped the tour to set up our camping area in one of the pastures, but as the day wore on, it became apparent that it was going to storm. So, then he spent another hour or so breaking down camp and putting the gear back in the truck. We had decided during our sandwich lunch that perhaps it would be best to just call it a day trip and spend the night in our own beds, because we didn’t want to be caught out in that storm. It turned out to be a decision for the best, because along the way home, Sebastian started acting very cranky, and refused food and milk when we got home, and it turned out that he was burning up with another fever (second one this week).

During the midday break, when the tours had stopped and everyone was either eating lunch, taking a nap, or wandering the farm, I took my own wander. Initially Kaleb prompted me to do this, but he dropped out soon into it. Sebastian was eager to get in the stroller, probably because he was tired. He ended up sleeping for over an hour in there as I pushed the BOB over slightly bumpy pasture trails and roads to check out the pond, the horses, and then wander all the way to the end of the pasture roads.

It was so peaceful out there by myself, with Sebastian sleeping. As much as I love my middle son, it was nice in a way that he had excused himself to sit with the other kids instead of walk, because we didn’t have to maintain a conversation and I was free to just enjoy the solitude of nature. I had borrowed Jason’s camera and tried to capture the joy of tiny details that I found along the way. A gentle buzz in the background was the sound of bees stopping in the clover and other flowering plants. I considered the knowledge that wild bees are disappearing across several states in the US, and was glad to see that were still plenty here in Cameron. I contemplated a world without bees, and hope that never happens.

I marveled at all the butterflies that I saw stopping at the wildflowers along the path. I found little ladybugs and aphids at work. Little crickets jumped in the plants, and tiny moths fluttered about. Even a dung beetle doing its job was fascinating to me. An ecosystem is made of all these little things, and an imbalance in their little world would tip the scales for our big world.

There was a little section of woods in the back pasture, and I walked along the edges to hear the bird songs and see if I could capture any with the camera. We need a better lens for that business, which means we need more money. I suppose that one reason I am so driven at my job is to try to make money to have a better life, one that includes more camera lenses and road trips to explore this great big world. I could hear wrens and cardinals, and I saw scissortails and brewers blackbirds out on the pasture. Barn swallows were ubiquitous. On the way back, a dickcissel sang from his perch at the top of the nearby trees.

This was a very relaxing hour or more that I spent by myself out there, but I started to feel dehydrated about the time that Jason and Kaleb drove up looking for us. Thunder could be heard in the distance, and the storm was creeping closer. We spent another couple of hours playing over by the baby area and taking some more pictures, like this rooster shot below:

We saw the men of the camp preparing for the evening’s fire pit, but we were starting to feel the wind rise and the first drops of rain. We decided that instead of waiting for dinner, we should just get on the road if it started raining, which ended up happening around four thirty. It rained hard the whole way home, soaking our bag that held the sleeping bags and pillows. I am not sure how the rest of the group fared, and how many of them ended up staying through the night.

If you are interested in visiting the farm yourself, they are doing two family type tours coming up next weekend and next month (click imbedded link for more details).

See more pictures that I took below:

Mother’s Day on the Katy Prairie

For my Mother’s Day present this year, my husband gave me what most mothers probably secretly want (especially mothers of three boys): solitude, peace and quiet, a break from the housework, and a chance to just be myself, by myself.

I had found an opportunity to participate in a nature workshop at one of the sites belonging to the Katy Prairie Conservancy, not normally open to the public (the Indiangrass Preserve). The workshop was called the Wild West Tour: Photographing Wildflowers and Breeding Birds, and it was led by Glenn Olsen, a Master Naturalist. Glenn has over twenty years experience identifying plants and birds, and he shared this knowledge with the group of a dozen or so nature enthusiasts who gathered at the preserve’s headquarters early this Sunday morning.

First we walked along the path to the large pond at the end of the path near the office, and Glenn pointed out all the different types of flowers that were blooming along the path’s edge. I am not usually the one who gets to to operate my husband’s fancy camera, but since we had decided that we 1) didn’t want to fork over $50 per person for both of us to come, and opted to just pay one registration fee and 2) it would have defeated the purpose and taken away from the experience to have to trek the younger kids out with us, and 3) we are too cheap to hire a babysitter, that it made sense for me to just bring his Nikon. I can’t exactly go to a photography workshop without a camera, but we procrastinated so long on making the decision that this was going to be my gift that we never made the time for him to give me a lesson on how to work the camera to get the shots I wanted. At first I was a little frustrated, but I kind of figured it out after a little while of fooling around. I got some shots I wanted (including the ones here in this post, and some more I didn’t post), but I also missed a lot of shots due to poor technique.

After we saw all the different types of the flowers along the path, we wandered behind the buildings to check out the nests of the barn swallows that were flitting about. We saw the marks on leaves where monarch butterflies had been feeding on a “toothache” tree, and learned about which plants are best to encourage butterflies and bees. Glenn pointed out which species were native, and which were invasive, and explained which type of butterfly or insect fed on several varieties as we made our way through the workshop. His knowledge was also pretty extensive regarding the range of common bird species.

About halfway through our time, we divided up into three groups and got into cars to do a driving tour of the Katy Prairie. We stopped at a couple of places along the roads, getting out to get shots of various plants that Glenn elaborated on.

Eventually we made our way to another KPC site, which I think was part of the Nelson Farm section. Here, we saw more wildlife, including big bullfrogs that hopped vigorously into the big lake, huge snakes that slithered into the water out of our site, and more birds. We got some pictures of the pair of Eastern Kingbirds that flitted about. There was a Lesser Yellow Legs that kept flying by that I did not get a picture of, and then we were treated to the rare sighting of a Hudsonian’s Godwit that I also was not able to catch with a camera (but did catch with my binoculars). In the distance, White Faced Ibis flew over the prairie in flocks, settling in the marshes together. We saw pelicans, cormorants, coots, meadowlarks, herons and egrets, as well as the ubiquous Red Winged Blackbirds.

On the way back, there was a nice shot of a Crested Caracara perching on a fencepost, but the people in my car missed the best angle because Glenn had moved his car to allow his passengers to get the shot. One of the guys in my car was mad about this the whole rest of the workshop, and I assured him that if he drove around these back roads long enough, he would find another to get a picture of. Sure enough, on the way home, I had a clear shot of another, who had gotten mixed into a flock of vultures feeding off some cow feet that were mysteriously dumped in front of a pasture gate.

I learned a lot about photography and about nature on this expedition, but I also learned I have a lot left out there to learn about. I also had a great time just being myself (not “Mom”), being completely absorbed in an experience, and spending some time embracing the outdoors. I am going to look for more experiences like this in the future, both guided and unguided.

Here are some of my other photos from today (not all, believe it or not):