The Hays Humm - October 2020
THE HAYS HUMM
October 2020
Tom Jones - Betsy Cross - Constance Quigley
Susan Powell - 2020 HCMN Training Class, Coronas [de Cristo]
Our close association is still recognizable even now, after six months of Covid wariness, with virtual meetings and volunteer opportunities. Each Hays County MN finds that as she learns informed new ways to live the mission of a Texas Master Naturalist, she contributes of herself — her skills, her life experience — to benefit all. The Coronas, 2020’s HCMN Training class, are no exception. That mutual advantage, symbiosis, is at work for each of us. And here, as an example, is current Training Class member Susan Powell.
Making of a Naturalist
Susan tells of growing up in southwest Michigan, “an entirely different natural setting, with berry farms, rolling hills, and deciduous forests of tall straight trees, their canopies a tunnel over the roadways.” Snowy winters found this little girl crafting maple syrup at the local nature center. In her teenage years her older brother, an avid birder, recruited her to help with bird counts and banding research. “I still remember the fragility of a hummingbird in my hand.”
Susan sparkles quietly, but candidly lets us know her. What emerges shining and proud from our conversations is her passionate love of the natural world.
Being our naturalist self in all our decisions takes unusual courage.
Twenty-five years ago Susan purchased five Texas acres in northern Hays County on a bluff above Barton Creek. By then, her naturalist’s sensibilities were profoundly symbiotic. “Instead of my being dominant over the land, the land informed my decisions.” Brave decisions.
“I dreamed of someday having a home where I would see nature out of every window.”
She designed and, over time, hand built her rock and cedar home to embrace mature oaks, in harmony with the natural setting.
Rainwater collection is her only source of fresh water. Over time, she’s added solar power, a greywater system, and an incinerating toilet.
Susan’s passion for the natural world has extended well beyond the boundaries of her land. “My two sons and I have visited 34 U.S. national parks. My living room wall is covered with photos of our nature journeys together.”
Profession
Susan has spent her working life as a degreed psychotherapist and nationally certified trainer of professional colleagues. Working with a Sicangu Lakota friend, she leads True Nature Retreats on her land. “Trainees do walking meditations and learn American Indigenous ways of living gently and respectfully on the earth,” for the planet’s health and their clients’ healing. Therapists from around the country work here toward their certification in psychodrama, sociometry, and group psychotherapy. Susan’s hope is that “anyone who visits this place leaves with more awareness and respect for the environment.”
Vocation
There is a centuries-old precedent for symbiosis between nature artist and engineer. Inventor Leonardo da Vinci and garden architect Vita Sackville-West were keen nature observers who drew what they saw, inspiring new sensibilities in the popular mind, in the engineered world.
We Master Naturalists can lend our particular talents to a new eco-sensibility in the popular mind, in an increasingly engineered world.
With a degree in studio art, Susan’s current focus is on “eco art.” She’s painted watercolor closeups of flowers and butterfly and moth wings. A large oak along RR12 between Wimberley and San Marcos exemplifies how, when ecologists and highway engineers work in close association, beauty can happen: they protected this old-growth tree when the road was widened. Susan’s painting of it is cleverly beautiful — bitter-sweet: “When we see all that beauty boarded up, we remember how many great old trees were not protected!” Her portfolio contains a variety of work. “I want it to encourage a respect for the intrinsic value of the natural world. My latest work includes detailed pen and ink drawings of rock formations in Pedernales Falls State Park.”
A conveniently neighboring State Park
Since moving to the Hill Country, except during the Covid-19 related Park closure, Susan has been a regular patron in nearby Pedernales Falls State Park, where she enjoys frequent hiking, mountain biking, camping, and backpacking. A worrisome observation: over the three plus decades she’s lived here, she’s seen unmistakable decreasing spring flow in the Park. “And near Jones Springs this year for the first time, the Bushy Blue Stem (Andropogon glomeratus) remained brown and dry.” September rains may finally have rescued drought stressed species for the time being. But suburban growth in Dripping Springs means more hardscape, less recharge, and increased water extraction from the Trinity Aquifer on which spring flow and all Park wildlife depend.
We love Texas’ wild places but continue to pave over the eco-systems that sustain them. Where’s the symbiosis – the mutual benefit?
Susan and the great Aoudad debate
In three surprise sightings in Pedernales Falls State Park this year, Susan has seen Aoudads, or Barbary Sheep (Ammotragus lervia). “They’re almost elk size, with an impressive straight outward curl of the horns.” Her first sighting was in late February, 2020, when she and former Park Superintendent Bill McDaniel were hiking just below the upper bluff of the Pedernales. “A family of four Aoudads suddenly crossed just 50 feet ahead of us on the narrow path, then disappeared into thick underbrush. In more than 30 years, McDaniel had seen them in the Park only once before.”
Susan learned in Dr. Hans Landel's HCMN 2020 Training Class lecture that if a species is non-native and causes harm, it can be called “invasive,” and that such a species might be considered invasive in one place but not necessarily in another — much depends on its local numbers and degree of harm to that specific environment. Dr. Landel, conservation ecologist and Invasive Species Program Coordinator with Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, asked if Susan had reported the sighting to current Park Superintendent John Alvis. “I had. John had seen them only once, and none had been culled during the park closures to allow hunting.” Susan has wondered what their actual count is in the Park and if they’re causing significant harm. She knows the many feral hogs there are definitely invasive; she sees their powerful rooting destruction of soils and plant cover throughout the park. “So in my third trail sighting this year, when another Aoudad jumped out of a small cave in the cliff edge, nearly knocking me off the trail, I wondered if their numbers are increasing.” If so, are they competing for habitat with other Park species?
Then there was the mountain lion she stared down…
Our featured 2020 MN Trainee Susan Powell brings an intense classic naturalist vibe to the Hays County Chapter. We learn from her and from one another, “to mutual advantage,” in this difficult year.
And Susan’s got that lion story “for another time.”
I had heard good things from friends about Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, Braiding Sweet Grass. And then, out of the blue, I was given a copy as a gift by Betsy Cross. Thank you, Betsy. Something told me I should make some time to read it and find out what was behind the buzz.
How to describe it? The word reverence…reverence for nature and everything in it… comes to mind because of the spiritual backdrop the author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, uses to give science context and, more importantly, profound meaning. She is, after all, a descendant of native Americans, the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, but also a PhD botanist and award-winning college professor.
Kimmerer writes prolifically (384 pages) about real-life issues including ecology, the environment, conservation and natural phenomena, weaving her own real-life stories and the legends handed down through generations of native Americans….like the sheaves of sweet grass, sacred to indigenous people, braided together to create something useful. Sweet grass, “wiingaashk” in the Potawatomi language, was the first plant on earth when Sky Woman descended to Turtle island (a creation story), and sweet grass is a recurring element in indigenous stories.
Every story in Braiding Sweetgrass has, at its heart, a philosophical concept—the interdependence of humankind and the world in which we live. If we take from nature only as much as we need and not more than nature can sustain, there is balance. Sometimes that means replacing crucial elements or giving back enough to ensure future generations will be provided for. That is all part of the “Sacred Harvest” concept. As we know, this is a wonderful concept that is rarely practiced by societies.
Almost every chapter has a real-life component drawn from Kimmerer’s life as a mother and a teacher. In one, Kimmerer shares the story of a native American family who took a foreign exchange student along with them as they harvested wild rice from a lake. He watched as they knocked the loose grain into their canoes, spilling some of the grain overboard in the process. The exchange student, who was studying engineering, offered to devise a method of harvesting that would save as much as 85 percent of the rice that was being “lost” in the process, but the family members reacted by pointing out that ducks and other animals depended on the rice that grew from the seeds lost in the harvesting process. Their rule was “never take more than half.” That would sustain both humans and wildlife.
In another anecdote, she writes about research by one of her graduate students. Their study showed that judicious harvesting of sweetgrass, adhering to native American practices of taking no more than half, actually promoted increased grass production in a given area. One aspect of this cultural harvesting practice that science cannot quantify is the gratitude indigenous cultures express for nature’s bounty. They literally say thank you out loud. They talk to the plants. For them, all things in life, the living and otherwise, deserve gratitude for what they provide us. And, they never take more than nature can afford to share.
Taking too much, creates a deficit that earth cannot make up for on its own. And, then, we—all of us—have a problem. In indigenous legends, avarice and greed are embodied in a monster known as Windigo, whose hunger is never satisfied.
Perhaps it was a Windigo executive at one of the chemical factories built along the shores of Lake Onondaga that turned one of the clearest lakes in the United States near Syracuse, NY over course of the 20th century, into the site of not one, but nine Superfund sites.
Oh, and another lesson we can take from the first Americans: Clean up after yourself and leave nothing behind. The book is full of many more of these.
by Mimi Cavender Horta
How time flies when you’re having fun.
Here we are, half a year on, so deep into Covid-19 that by now it feels crassly familiar. Covid is like the gossipy coworker, toxic boss, the tipsy uncle… Bless us, we just stay away from them and get on with the good stuff. Carefully.
Some of the best stuff is working outdoors in a pretty Texas wild place like Charro Ranch Park. Look back to the April issue of the Hays County Master Naturalists magazine, The Hays Humm, April-2020-Newsletter and revisit the article on Charro Ranch Park.
It was March. Covid-19 was just beginning to turn 2020 into this annus terribilis smorgasbord of natural and social torment. We couldn’t have known. Look at Project Leader Sue Harding and the HCMN volunteers; like the rest of the country, they’d heard the term “social distancing” only 24 hours before. No masks yet! We couldn’t find them in the stores, along with alcohol, hand sanitizer, bottled water, toilet paper… Yep, you remember. But there we were, in the Charro parking lot, uncomfortably six feet apart, shovels and trowels at the ready! We had winter debris to clean, spring weeds and juniper sprouts to pull, and last year’s planted tree saplings to hunt down and water throughout the Park.
That was then. This is now.
Fast forward six months. It’s a clear blue morning, September 12, 2020. Autumn’s first cool front has broken the drought and dropped air temperatures out of the 100s for the first time in two months, but it warms up fast. We know the drill. We mask, we distance, we get it done.
Working masked: “Hi, is that Tom—which Tom? Constance, is that you? ...”
The Park badly needs King Ranch Bluestem pulling, major weed-eating, and a fresh layer of cedar mulch on the trails. But this “new normal” means that we hardly recognize our masked friends. Some congeniality is lost. Not to mention comfort — on each wheelbarrow run from the mulch pile, your mask balloons in and out of your mouth with every soggy huff and puff.
Volunteers are Dick Barham, Mimi Cavender, Anne Forish, Paul Fushille, Tom Hausler, Tom Jones, Craig LaRobardier, Dick McBride, Michael Meves, Sharon Meves, Constance Quigley, and Nicola Williamson. They’ll make a difference in three hours. Take a look.
After only three hours, it all looks great over the fence, doesn’t it?
Away from the entrance area, down the central trail into the Park, Tom Jones runs into Paul Fushille, Travis County Natural Resources Specialist, nature photographer and Dripping Springs resident, maintaining the nature trails.
Less than halfway into the Park, Tom encounters one of the Park’s more unusual features, the Solstice Garden, a gigantic solstice compass with sighting stones. They say it really works! The 2020 Winter Solstice falls on December 21, the shortest day this year, when the sun’s arc will begin its rise higher above our heads with each passing day until the process is reversed six months later on next year’s longest day, the Summer Solstice, on June 20, 2021.
Tom Jones atop the Solstice Stone. This winter’s solstice is Monday, December 21, 7:30 a.m. CT. Head out to Charro Ranch and check out the rising sun’s alignment along the stones.
The Park is a gift to us all from the City of Dripping Springs and from the original Ranch owner. This 64-acre wooded wildland offers mulched trails, hidden benches and picnic tables, and a birding station. For naturalists and area families, it’s an accessible slice of wild Texas, now forever sheltered from suburbs encroaching from all sides. In a state where 96 percent of the land is in private hands, gifts from landowner to the public are to be encouraged. And cherished.
Skilled volunteers like HCMNs are key to maintaining this small nature preserve. Charro Ranch Park is five miles south of Dripping Springs, east off RR12, at 22690 W. FM150. Charro Ranch Park
Charro Ranch Park has miles of hiking trails.
Tom Jones and Paul Fushille talking about trail maintenance.
Sidebar by Tom Jones
I attended the Charro Ranch workday along with Mimi and the other volunteers. It felt great working an outdoor activity at a local park. My previous project work was leading a tour at Westcave Preserve in February. This was my first visit to Charro Ranch Park, and I was impressed. I quickly volunteered to haul mulch from the pile to the trail where it was needed. It felt good to do the hard work, enjoy the outdoors and visit with friends.
It was also good to visit with Paul Fushille and get an update on conservation projects in the Dripping Springs area. I first met Paul at a Birds & Brew event at Westcave Preserve. His knowledge on birds and bird calls is amazing.
Description: Charro Ranch Park is a 64-acre open space park located on FM 150, 1 mile east of Ranch Rd 12 in Dripping Springs. It provides a natural setting for passive activities for the community such as walking, picnicking, bird watching, and reflection on the natural environment. The ecological environments consist of a mixed oak-juniper woodland, prairie grasses, and a part year wetland (fen). There are trails for walking/running, a bird blind, a labyrinth (Walk of Peace), the Solstice Circle, a pavilion with picnic tables, benches throughout the park, numerous blue bird houses, a chimney swift tower, a small native plant demonstration garden, and a 1200-gallon rainwater collection tank. Charro Ranch is home to a rare native grass, Aparejo Muhly (Muhlenbergia utilis).
Activities: Hays County Master Naturalists meet the second Saturday of each month except August for 3 hours in the morning. We enjoy fellowship in doing general trail maintenance, invasive species removal, Ashe Juniper thinning/control, maintenance of the bird blind, planting tree saplings, and maintaining and upgrading the demonstration garden.
Location: Dripping Springs
VMS Code: 1010 NPA, PO, RM
THANK YOU CONTRIBUTORS
Bruce Cannon
Robert Currie
Patty Duhon
Paula Glover
Tai Gunter
Mimi Cavender
Susan Powell
What do you do when your project involves big gatherings of people and you have a pandemic? That is the question the Outreach Project #704 has faced – but, fear not, we are still working hard to promote the chapter and grow its membership! First, we welcome Carolina Duncan to our project as the new Community Liaison for Wimberley. She is part of this year’s Corona de Cristo class, and brings expertise and energy to developing outreach venues. Our project has expanded this year. Community education outreach now has a dedicated person to grow opportunities to teach the public about protecting, restoring and conserving the beautiful Hays County natural resources. Chris Middleton is the new co-chair for Project #704.
We are partnering with realtors, title companies and homeowner’s associations to share our mission and story with refrigerator magnets boasting about our website. It is through these professionals that we hope to capture the newcomers to Hays County and get them to join us in conservation. We have also hosted a speaker’s series to increase the realtors’ awareness of our program and pursuits. Karl Flocke presented a concise yet extensive look at Oak Wilt. Katherine Sturdivant told us about the past, present and future innovations at Hays County Parks. You may view these presentations here.
In coordination with the recently formed Diversity Committee, the Festivals Team is eager to expand our reach even further. By promoting the chapter in new venues, we hope to reach many of our underserved populations. Our chapter membership has not been proportional to the Hispanic, African-American, Native American and young adult populations in the county, so look for our booth at local powwows and ethnic celebrations.
“I’m always looking…on the ground…in the trees…at my rocks.
I’m rarely disappointed by Mother Nature. I just have to SEE what She has left for me to see.”
We are often wowed by the pictures our colleagues share with us through our newsletter. We see amazing animals, beautiful birds, fantastic flowers, incredible insects and stunning sunrises and sunsets. I have learned, though, that there is far more to appreciate in our surroundings than these.
Last fall I cleaned pups from around a big agave in my back yard. I did a general cleanup all around the mother plant, including the removal of dead leaves. It was hot, grueling work which included many close, painful encounters from the end points and side hooks along the leaves. I replanted some pups, gave some away, and planned to toss the dead leaves on our burn pile. As I gingerly picked them up to load them onto our ranch wagon, I noticed, then LOOKED at them for the first time. Some of them had very intriguing shapes and colors that I would never have expected. I began setting them out and taking pictures. Months passed, and I shared them with my daughter. She is an artist/photographer, and she found them as interesting as I had (good sign for me — it wasn’t just the Nature Nerd that saw their beauty!). We sifted through the images and chose our favorites. We positioned them to highlight their distinct peculiarities. Last week we finalized our choices and submitted the images to a lab to get them printed on metal so they can become artwork on the dog trot of our home. It will be Nature complementing Nature.
September brought the gift of rain and a much needed reprieve from 100 degree days. Warblers, orioles, and other avian migrants were noted as they passed through our Hill Country landscapes. The Summer Tanagers, who raised their young in my yard, were here until last week. The call of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo has been replaced by a Blue Jay’s astoundingly accurate imitation of the Red-shouldered Hawk. Several of you have posted colorful, richly textured pictures of Rufous Hummingbirds in your yards. The bluebonnet seeds and other wildflowers I planted a few weeks ago have emerged and are building their foundations for spring. Fifth generation monarch butterflies are beginning their journeys from the North and will start to filter into Central Texas soon. Fall nectar producing plants are well poised for their arrival. Frostweed, refreshed from the recent rain, has perked up and is beginning to bloom. Fingers crossed for a strong monarch migration this month. Be inspired. Get your camera batteries charged up and share your October photos with us!
Photos by Betsy Cross and Constance Quigley. Monarchs by Tai Gunter. Commentary by Betsy.
Wild Tiger
Gorgeous colors - flawless fall beauty.
Eastern Ribbon Garter Snake
Constance had several slithering September visitors including this beauty.
Male Lesser Goldfinch
The seeds of the Common Sunflower were a favorite of the goldfinches in my yard.
Checkered Garter Snake
Great spotting by Constance.
They're On Their Way!
These monarchs, photographed by Tai Gunter in his yard in South Bend, IN (September 12), were nectaring on Northern Blazing Star, Liatris scariosa. Tai is a friend and coworker. He also serves as President of the South Bend Audubon Society.
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
These little guys foraged in my oaks and on the sunflowers.
Wilson's Warbler
This migrating warbler stopped over for a drink and a dip. The Texas Spiny Lizard seemed unimpressed with him.
Another little migrant stopped by just long enough for a quick photo.
Rough Green Snake
Constance had a sharp eye for this grass snake.
