Much to be thankful for

We made our annual pilgrimage to Port Aransas to celebrate Thanksgiving. Lots of food, pies, wine, scrabble, long walks, and shelling. We had a bonfire/hootenanny on one of the cool nights.

The dunes at Port Aransas are looking taller and healthier than I've ever seen them. The vegetation is something to behold especially in the fall. The grass seedtops turn silver, red, and chestnut.



Mimosa Strigillosa or powderpuff plant. It looks more like a fiber optic pompon than a powderpuff. It was growing along the path from our condo. It's about the size of a large gumball and only an inch off the ground. Sweet.



Beach Evening Primrose (Oenothera Drummondii)
These seem to bloom year-round at Port A. These were wide open at 8 a.m. in the morning.


Common Broomweed?
Hard to tell, there are so many yellow aster-like daisy varieties.



On the way home, we stopped at Goose Island State Park to see the Big Tree. This coastal liveoak is supposedly more than 1000 years old. To be honest, it didn't strike me as that big. The copse of oaks nearby were more striking. And for some insane reason the TPWD has put up a hideous chain link fence around the Big Tree. The fence is only about 4ft tall, so anyone could hop over it, so it's not doing any good as protection.




Two views of the nearby motte of oaks. All of the oaks along this stretch of coast have this drastically tormented look from being subjected to prevailing offshore winds. We came back through Luling, where at my favorite plant stand last year I got the Knockout roses. Fortunately with Will and Rachel's gear on top of mine, there was no room to cram any plants in, so we kept on rolling. It didn't rain while we were in Port A and I arrived home to find nothing in the rain gauge either. The drought is now about a year on.