Big Freeze Clean Up: Before and After

So I left off with the big freeze having happened. This means that plants got goobered.  Plants that hadn't been cut back in eons died back to the ground, some plants, like my Arizona Ash still haven't recovered since it was already budding out right as the freeze hit. 

The Asiatic Jasmine corner. Before. On the plus side, the freeze really did kill off most of this invasive plant making it much easier to get rid of.

After.  I realize it's hard to see the difference since it was all brown before and is still brown. But hopefully the tree appreciates it.

Can you find all the toads?  There was a whole family of them living under an old grill cover which was in the Asiatic Jasmine.  The cover had been full incorporated into the jasmine. 

The Toadrys.  I had to text my "snake guy" coworker because he's into all the cool animals - like seriously, I've brought him skulls, jaw bones, snake skins, and pictures of snakes in the past to find out what they are. So naturally I texted him a photo of the toads and was like "uh...I'm doing yardwork, how do I save these guys? Do I need to use gloves or anything?" So this was the first time in my life where I went about catching toads and putting them in a bucket.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going, mister?!". The amount of talking I was doing to those toads and the spiders I found probably had my neighbors questioning my sanity.

Adult Rough Earth Snake. We have these occasionally in the yard and I love them. This was my first time actually catching and holding one. And then I had to catch him AGAIN because he was intent on needing to be in the part of the yard where the asiatic jasmine was and didn't WANT to be in the garden area.  Bonus points to me that I didn't need to contact "the snake guy" since I joined a snake identification group on Facebook and now spend a lot of time looking at snake pictures and have gotten much better at identifying them - Shawn says hopefully this means I'll actually SEE the snakes before I step on them (I've almost stepped on a racer, a bull snake, a rattlesnake, and a rat snake).

As for planting things in this area, I'm trying to generally keep it unplanted through this summer (because I predict it's going to be a summer from hell a la 2011 again). BUT, this is also an area that like years ago I had planned to plant some beauty bushes in this area - bushes that I promptly had purchased with the misguided idea that if I had the bushes on hand, I'd remove the asiatic jasmine sooner rather than later. 

Hahahahahahahaha

Yeah - the beautyberry, Mexican buckeye, and agarita sat in tiny pots for YEARS. I needed to cut the containers away from the roots and still dig them out of the ground.  BUT! I did get them dug up and then replanted in this area. But since those plants were also damaged by the freeze, they all got a severe cut back and now I'm waiting for them to leaf out more so you can actually see them in the photo. But with the warmer weather, I am getting some of the Asiatic jasmine coming back from root pieces I missed, so I need to keep the area clear for a growing season or so, just to make sure I got it all.

Cochise Stronghold, Arizona

After leaving Davis Mountains State Park, we drove on to Arizona and spent the night at Cochise Stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains. The area was known as one of the locations where Cochise stayed. He is apparently buried somewhere in this area, but no one knows where - it was in a ravine and his dog and his horse were killed and buried with him.

A view from the road on the way to Cochise Stronghold

Our campsite at Cochise.  There were 2 other people there with us.  The campground is first come, first served with no way to reserve spots in advance.

On a walkabout in the campground while Shawn was off mountain biking.

The beginning of the Cochise Trail.  It is 8 miles round trip.  We did 4 - which was to the divide between the east and west stronghold area and back.

One of the mountains

In the creek.  I love the grass on the right side - I'm not sure what type it is, but I do really like it.  I also fell in love with the Manzanita bush which was all over in this area.

Looking up the mountain

Another look up the mountain

Scrub or Mexican Jay.  I love the look of this...like if I were going to get a tattoo, I think this would be a top contender.

Shawn taking photos in the morning

Rocks in the morning.

Half Moon Tank - i.e. it's a dam.

On the upstream side of the dam.  This is about 1 mile into the hike.

A different angle of the dragoons.  The rocks were so cool here - all rounded and shit.

Baby agave with some Manzanita seeds.  I didn't take any photos when we got to the divide because there really wasn't anything to take a photo of - but neither of us wanted to continue on for fear that we'd just keep being like "just a little further" and then we'd have to turn around and hike all the way back.  In other words, this was probably taken about 2.5 miles into the hike.

Shadow selfie

Again, Shawn leading the way.

Rocks.  It's really not difficult to understand how Cochise managed to wage a 10-year long war against the US government in an area the size of a postage stamp with his home-turf looking like this.

Cactus.  Some type of Mammilaria?

Blacktail Rattlesnake.  This guy didn't even start rattling at us until later.  This is about 3 miles into the hike. And we had obviously already walked past this spot on our way out.

After we went around the snake (we went off trail), we decided to go around back to see if he was still on the trail - he had already moved off the trail and was under a pine tree.

This was actually the point when he started rattling at us.  Blacktails are apparently the most docile of the rattlesnakes and least likely to bite...not that I want to put that to the test...

I think all the yellow is creosote bush, but I don't know that for sure.  These "Sky Islands" have a huge variety of plants and a lot of them are different than what you find at the lower levels.

More rocks

Heading west toward Tucson

At the McDonalds in Wilcox.  This was the first time I had heard of McDonalds having All Day Breakfast.  I don't think you realize how excited I got about that prospect.  I think the counter girl thought I was insane.

Davis Mountain State Park & Balmorrhea State Park

In mid-September, Shawn and I took a road trip to Tucson, Arizona to visit my grandparents. It's a road trip, so that naturally means you have to drive places you normally wouldn't (or at least that's my theory). Based on coworkers' recommendations, we spent a few days in Davis Mountains State Park.

Davis Mountains State park is adjacent to Fort Davis National Historic Site.  If you plan to visit Davis Mountains, keep in mind that Indian Lodge is a popular place to visit so you may need reservations which you can schedule by calling the Texas Parks and Wildlife main office.  Other places listed here include Balmorrhea State Park and McDonald Observatory.

In the middle of the trail, there's a twisty-looking stick thing.  That, dear readers, is a rattlesnake in the middle of eating a rat.  I don't know what type of rattlesnake, but it was definitely a rattlesnake.  We saw this guy on our way out of the backpacking portion of our trip.

Me, drawing a picture on our Backpacking portion of the trip.

A hummingbird at a feeder in the Bird Blind area of Davis Mountains State Park.

Lesser gold finches

Inside the Indian Lodge

In the courtyard outside the Black Bear restaurant

Awesome agave

Cochineal scale on a cactus.  Yes, I made sure.

Little Toad buddy on a step.

Blue sky in the window

A view from the back parking lot

A view from the trail run that Shawn and I did when we first got to Davis Mountains.  The backpacking area is on the ridge on the other side of the road.

A view of Indian Lodge from the trail run

Rocks and the trail on the hike over to Old Fort Davis

One of the CCC built structures in Davis Mountains

Hiking to Fort Davis

More hiking through Flash Flood Alley

Our first view of Fort Davis.  The row of officers' houses runs north/south on Magnetic north, while the old foundations (which you can see to the right) run north/south on True north.

A view of the hospital at Fort Davis

A wagon at Fort Davis (the commissary is just to the right)

Heading out on our backpacking adventure

One of my pictures I drew while backpacking

Sunset during our backpacking trip

Hiking out in the morning.  You may have noticed that Shawn always goes first in our photos - that is because when we were backpacking in Washington, it became pretty obvious that I am oblivious to snakes when I almost stepped on a rattlesnake.

Hiking out from backpacking

Balmorrhea State Park.  After hiking out during our backpacking, we decided to drive the 45 minutes to Balmorrhea to go for a swim.  Balmorrhea was also a CCC location and everything was built by the crew.

"Come on in, the water's fine!" so says the man who has no problem swimming at Barton Springs.  He said he thinks Balmorrhea is a few degrees warmer.

Fish.  There was also a large turtle swimming around in the springs.  I almost lost my shit over it.

A view from one end of the pool.

Our room at Indian Lodge.  We only stayed one night in the lodge, but damn the room was cool.

Another view of the courtyard area.

A view of the Indian Lodge swimming pool looking toward the entrance of the park.

Yucca against a white wall.

A view from one of the lower areas of Indian Lodge

The night we stayed at Indian Lodge was the night that we had tickets for the McDonald Observatory's Star Party. We arrived around sunset, and then had to kill some time until it was dark enough for the tour to start.  Caroline at Shovel-Ready Garden went to the Big telescope viewing the following night.  If you are going to be in the area during one of their Star Parties or telescope viewings, be sure to attend.

A view of the native plant area at McDonald - this looks much better in person and obviously my cell phone camera is just crappy at capturing it at night...

Sunset at McDonald

Indian Lodge light outside our room

Garter Snake.  We also saw a tarantula (the first wild one for either of us) but it was when we didn't have our cell phones, so no picture, no proof.  Thankfully Shawn had his cell phone at the time when we saw the rattlesnake.

The area had received enough rain for the ocotillo to all have leaves.  It was actually very strange and it made me want to grow one even though I know they don't have leaves most of the year.