Spring was a little slow to actually spring this year. We had had such little rain that even by early April, there weren’t a whole lot of bluebonnets to be found. In our yard, things were definitely slower to bloom than they might normally. My heartleaf skullcap, which seems like it’s among the first to bloom, really didn’t show any flowers through the entire month.
Beloved local grocery store chain HEB has been selling Texas native plants in their garden section. Maybe they always do this, but I finally became aware of it this spring. I managed to score a number of native flowering plants, some in bloom, some not, and that added some spring flowers to our slow to bloom yard. We managed rock rose, scarlet sage, and Blackfoot daisies, all in bloom. We also scored some coral honeysuckle and coneflower that haven’t yet had a chance to flower, but hopefully will sometime this year.
One morning, I was astonished to find something in the flower beds that looked for all the world like some animal had barfed in our yard. Sure enough, it was a fungus type growth called – I’m not kidding – Dog Vomit Slime Mold. Its name isn’t even the weirdest part. Once the slime mold dried, it became less visible, and I kind of forgot about it … until I had installed some new plants in that same bed and wanted to water them. As I was watering, I noticed a weird black smoke-like haze above the mulch – the spores were ready to spread and apparently the pressure of my watering encouraged them to do so. As I understand it, the slime mold isn’t particularly harmful to humans or wildlife. It’s just doing its part to break down my wood mulch.
The first Friday of the month, Maya and Ian went to the carnival at Maya’s middle school. I wasn’t sure Maya would care, but she definitely wanted to go. Sean and I mostly hung out and let the kids run. Honestly, we tried to work out a deal where we dropped the kids off and came back to pick them up, but Maya especially was having none of it. Maybe next year.
That first weekend in April was the cub scouts spring campout. I thought for sure it was going to be rained out, and sure enough, they did cancel early camping on Friday. The campout was a Colorado Bend State Park, a place I had been wanting to visit for years, so I would definitely have sprung for the extra night on Friday, if Maya’s school thing hadn’t overlapped.
The scouts were loathe to cancel, and after carefully examining the forecast, decided to carry on for Saturday into Sunday camping. Most of us had reservations for a small spelunking adventure in one of the park’s many wild caves, and those reservations couldn’t have been honored on the backup weekend, so they scout leader was very motivated to keep our original schedule intact, as long as it was safe.
Saturday morning, we drove to the state park mostly in the rain. We got there and got our tent set up. Maya caught some grasshoppers, we dodged animal poo, we admired the nearby river.
We spent the afternoon going on a hike. The two main hikes at Colorado Bend are the Gorman Falls Trail and the Spicewood Springs Loop. We would only have time for one of the two hikes, since we had a cave tour scheduled. I still want to hike someday to see Gorman Falls, but it’s a destination hike. We went for the Spicewood Springs loop instead, since the whole trail is scenic and interesting. We saw many springs of course, but to me the neatest part was ascending on the trail and looking down into the canyon.
Even though it was still pretty early in the year, we saw some neat vegetation too. I was particularly enthralled with the native milkweed we saw growing along the trail. I have tried and failed to get native milkweed to get a foothold in our yard, in an effort to encourage monarch butterflies to visit, so it was a delight to see it looking so big and healthy out in the wild.
We also saw a beautiful red-blooming cactus. Image search tells me this is a Kingcup cactus. It provided a much appreciated dash of color to the early-season landscape. All in all, the hike was lovely, and I’m glad we got to camp earlier enough to fit it in.
We were warned that it would be cold. We had had several warm days before the campout, so I wasn’t thinking about just how cold we would get. We brought jackets and raincoats and the extra sacks for our sleeping bags that would make them feel warmer. What we should have done is brought our thermals, winter coats, hats, and gloves. Seriously, it was so cold Sunday morning.
The cave we visited was called Turtle Shell Cave and after a brief safety talk with our guide (Jeff), we donned our hats and knee pads and headed hiked the short trail to the cave entrance. Cave entrance here is a term with really describes a hole in the ground. We didn’t walk into a Scooby Doo villain secret lair cage. We descended down into the cave.
After our initial descent, we were mostly on our hands and knees crawling. There were spots here and there where we could sit up and relax a bit, but there were also spots where I felt like I had to hunker down and army crawl to get through. But, we got to see cave crickets and some bones and even a bat! She was referred to as nugget (given her resemblance to a chicken nugget) but I think her name was Roxanne. We viewed her with a red light so as not to disturb her. Get it? Roxanne, you don’t have to put on that red light.
We had already packed up before our cave tour, so after we were done, it we headed home, stopping on our way through Lampasas for lunch. We stopped in at Country Kitchen and Bakery, and they didn’t bat an eye when us cave-dirty, camping-weary Woodses plopped down and ordered way too much food.
We had been halfway hoping we’d see a nice patch of bluebonnets while we were at Colorado Bend. Alas, there really weren’t any. And our normal spot wasn’t all that impressive. I toyed with the idea of having the kids sit on either side of a lone bluebonnet who had gamely set up shop in a crack in the sidewalk near our house for our annual photos this year. Ultimately, Sean split the difference and with some careful angling, made use of some nice bluebonnets that were growing in a nearby neighbor’s yard to accomplish our photos this year.
Ian isn’t generally as interested as Maya is in musical and theater performance opportunities at his grade school, so we don’t get to see any extra fun theater performances. But we did get to go and see him perform with his fourth grade music class one morning early in the month. They apparently had, as a class, written and composed some songs and were going to perform them for us. It was a cute show, though Ian seemed to disassociate himself from any involvement in the development of the songs.
For Easter, we were pretty low key. We filled the kids’ baskets with goodies. I baked cupcakes for them to decorate, and this year, they did ALL the decorating. They piped icing on with a couple different tips and decorated with edible butterflies and a variety of fun sprinkles. Later on in the day, they bashed each other with cascarones.
The grandparents were in on the Easter action too. Grammy and Grandpa sent gift cards – hooray! Lolli had started crocheting Ian this patchwork blanket over the Christmas break, in part to show him how to crochet. That blanket grew and grew and was shipped to him for Easter. So Maya would not be left out, Lolli crocheted and sent her an adorable cat.
Unfortunately, Easter afternoon, we discovered the pressure was gone from our hot water tap. After some work from Sean, two different plumber visits on two different days, and way more money than I ever would have expected for such a small issue, it was fixed, but it messed up our schedule for a little while. Also, holy wow, plumbing work is expensive!
Ian performs at the farmers’ market in his teacher’s neighborhood more or less monthly. While we didn’t get any footage of the music this time, the performance was solid, and it sounds like Ian may even have enjoyed it a little.
The last weekend of the month was all about Maya and music, and wow was she stressed about it. On Saturday morning, she had her middle school band competition. She and her classmates would perform solo and ensemble pieces and a judge would give them ratings based on their performance. What was special was that the ensemble piece for the double reeds (oboes and bassoon) was a composition written by Maya. That composition didn’t have a name until *right* before the performance. As a group, they chose to title it, “A Windy Journey.” The double reed kids all received a 1 on their solos and the group received a 1 on their ensemble, so I think it went pretty well.
Then the very next day, Maya had per spring piano recital. She always volunteers to perform. And even though I gently suggested that she limit her performance (and practicing, and stress level) to the first movement of her piece, she insisted on doing the whole thing. She was committed to practicing and of course, she had it memorized by performance time (which is not a requirement). When she sat down to perform, given her nerves, she started playing at probably a good 10+% faster speed than she had been practicing at. I was on pins and needles the whole time she played, worried that at turbo speed she would stumble and get flustered. She didn’t. She did a great job. Multiple people found her after the concert to specifically congratulate her on her playing. I think she was too overwhelmed by the attention to consider enjoying the compliments. Here she is playing Sonatina in C Major, by Friedrich Kuhlau.
When we moved into our house, there were many large ash trees shading the yard and roof. It’s a little hard to grow things in that shade, but it was very welcome in the summer months. Those trees are all toward the end of their life span and we’ve had to remove a number of them over the years. Well, this year we had to remove two more. We now have a very sunny roof and a back yard that, while still pretty shady, has a lot more sun than it used to. There’s only one of those ash trees left, and between the droughts and the weird freezes, we’ve had to remove most of his limbs too. We’ll see how long that guy survives.
