Walk In The Park: Wild Women or Crazy Aunts or...?

I've always believed there are moments in our lives

which can be defined as a transition

between the before and after,

between the cause and the effect.

~ Benjamin X. Wretlind, Castles: A Fictional Memoir of a Girl with Scissors

The Sentinel - a Great Blue Heron stands amid the mangroves at Indian Point Park.

Yes, there are moments -- when you become a wife -- when you become a mother -- when you become an orphan -- when you become 3 not 4. At those moments the transition is a bright or dark line "between the before and after."

But some things creep up on us - achy joints and bad vision and grey hair.

My sister (she) and I have always wandered the wild together. We have climbed mesquites trees and neighborhood "mountains." We have wandered the scrub woods near our home and at camps and parks. We have likely trespassed more than a time or two.

For a few hours this week we were the aunts. We hugged and consoled and expressed our pride in these no-longer-children as they navigate the challenges life has in store for them. There is no way around it. There is only through.

Then she and I headed back up the highway, making plans and telling tales. It would be a slow trip back home for me as we would visit for another day. And, even as the exchange of shared memories and our ventures onto the beach and through the woods made us children for a few moments, we recognized that we might be perilously close to moving from "the aunts" to "the crazy aunts" to "the little old aunts."*

It was an odd thought, perhaps entertained because we traveled through these towns of our youth.** Perhaps we were just "looking ahead."

Are we there yet? [An appropriate question for the car.]

No, we are not there yet. [At least we don't think so.] And, while we are blessedly on the way, we have other stops to make. On these two days we were headed for the wild.

Indian Point:

You have been here with me (and with family) before. On this day our trips (2 trips) were almost "drive-bys." We saw only a few birds, visited with other beachcombers (always a teacher, my sister was sharing tiny shells with one tiny child), and frowned at the trash covering the shore. We gasped and laughed at the Roseate Spoonbills. We debated the identity of some shorebirds (a Willet, some Cormorants, and others we did not know). We scouted the usual location of Brown Pelicans. We watched the Hermit Crabs sheltering in their Lightning Whelks. We watched a jellyfish float slowly towards the beach.

t was easy to identify the three Roseate Spoonbills (we both gasped a little when we saw them - they are stunning birds). We were not so sure about the others, but finally decided they were Snowy Egrets. That's a Laughing Gull flying over. We saw more than 100 Laughing Gulls.

Cormorants. I should know what kind, but I don't.

Brown Pelicans and more Cormorants.

Is it the beach without at least one jellyfish?

And it is not a Texas beach without a Lightning Whelk (with a hermit crab aboard)

This is the piece of driftwood I would have taken home, had I taken one home.

We only drive the roads and stop in the parking lot. Then we walk along the beach trying not to disturb the birds who do run along the shore.

We have a serious problem. This is the trashiest I have seen this stretch of beach.

Beach Evening-Primrose

Laughing Gull

Brown Pelican and Great Blue Heron (the birds where just flinging themselves in front of the cell phones!)

Willet (or won't it?)

New species for me. It got up and walked around.

Just after this it flew off calling and we got some video (enabling us to identify).

Sea Oxeye Daisy

None of these are very good, but if you look closely you can see the red on the shoulder of this Red-winged Blackbird (I think I saw my first with my baby brother. This may be only the second I have seen even though they are common in the fields of my home. I just don't remember them.

Coleto Creek Park:

Day two found us starting too late to see the deer (but we saw signs). More shore birds gathered at the edge of the reservoir.

She had a real camera for this hike. Here is the Great Blue Heron taking flight with an Egret in the foreground. (Her photos will be so indicated -BFH)

Both birds rise from the shore.

Another view of the birds flying over the reservoir. (BFH)

Proof of deer.

Freshwater clam of some kind.

Herbertia (Herbertia lahue) - These were everywhere.

Frog Fruit

Too many photos of Bull Thistles, I know. But I love them.

I love the "skeleton" of this flower. Only after blowing this up did I notice the tiny spider just under the dried petals (a yellow spot) and an ant on the stem.

A true bug. I will get help identifying.

His "close-up"

Being eaten alive.

Day Flower

One of a pair

Every now and again my awful cell phone can see something special.

Detail of butterflies on thistle (BFH)

So often these Texas Dandelions have critter company.

Egret in flight.

Yet another strange insect.

Golden-wave (Coreopsis basalis)

Another Coreopsis?

Rose Gentian (Sabatia campestris)

Bull Nettle

Bull Nettle is so lovely. Too bad it bites.

Horsemint

Switchgrass

Loads of vines in the woods including grapevine and poison ivy.

That's poison ivy on that tree trunk.

This trail is mostly covered and lovely.

We would come into a small meadow of wildflowers...

...and then head back into the shade.

Yuccas hiding under the canopy.

Creepy critters on the prickly pear.


She found this dragonfly (Epitheca princeps - Prince baskettail).

It is too fabulous - here's another photo.

Then the rain started and we had to go.

Here we examined the wildflowers and listened to the call of a Great Egret (sounds kind of like a swan or frog, depending on who you ask).

The wild always brings firsts. It is never boring.

We traveled low and slow.

I know there is a time to be focused on the endpoint....I know. But I am fairly certain I will always object a bit to traveling too fast. I want to see the bugs and lizards and wildflowers and so does she.

We want to see the herons fly and we want to hear the egret's cry.

NOTES:

* Mother used to visit the little old aunts when we were kids. Some were her mother's half-sisters. Others were Daddy's mother's sisters. I remember Aunt Edna and Aunt Bill (her name really was Willy - go figure) and Aunt Lulu.

Because she and I were up at 11:00 p.m. listening to the call of the Gulf Coast Toad in her neighborhood, "crazy" still works.

** Now a grandmother herself, my sister is starting a new life - having moved to our mother's and grandmother's hometown.