After waiting almost a full year, I finally got to photograph two very special species of moth, the yucca moth (Tegeticula yuccasella) and bogus yucca moth (Prodoxus decipiens). Last year I didn’t know very much about these incredible moths and their symbiotic relationship with yuccas (Yucca filamentosa). I found out how cool they are only when my backyard yuccas were done flowering back in late June 2021. I had to wait until this June to fully appreciate them and get some photos of them.
“True” yucca moth (Tegeticula yuccasella) mating pair to the left, bogus yucca moth pair (Prodoxus decipiens) to the right.
The yucca plant and yucca moth are a classic case of interdependence, where the yucca plant relies on the yucca moth for pollination, and the yucca moth relies on the seed pods of the yucca plant for its larva to feed. The plant and the moth are very closely connected and rely on eachother to carry on their respective life cycles. This is the most interesting part: the yucca moth PURPOSELY pollinates the yucca flower after oviposition! Most insect-involved pollination occurs as a by-product of their foraging for nectar and pollen. It is extremely rare for an insect species to actively and purposely pollinate a flower.
“true” yucca moth (Tegeticula yuccasella) purposely pollinates yucca plant (Yucca filamentosa) after depositing eggs in the flower’s ovary
Mating pair of bogus yucca moth (Prodoxus decipiens). They are about half the size of the “true” yucca moth and have much smaller eyes.
Yucca moths emerge when the yucca is starting to bloom. Yucca moths are highly specialized to pollinate yuccas. Even with human intervention, by way of of a paintbrush to transfer pollen, it is difficult to accomplish what the yucca moth is so specially designed to do. The yucca moth is the only known pollinator for yuccas east of the Rocky Mountains. After mating on the yucca flowers, the female moth collects pollen from one or more flowers and arrives at a fresh flower. This is to ensure cross-fertilization. It chooses only fresh flowers, no more than a day or two old. The female moth deposits her eggs in the flower’s ovary and then immediately climbs up the stamen and actively shoves the pollen she collected from another flower down the stamen to make sure that a seed pod will grow.
The larva yucca moths feed on the growing seed pod for about a moth, then they bore their way out of the pod and drop to the base using silken strings. They live at the base of the yucca bunch and then later in the ground until the next year when they emerge as adults with the flowers. Make sure not to cut off the yucca stalks until August to make sure the larva moths have exited (I almost made this mistake last year).
yucca seed pod, host to yucca moth larva
There is a neighboring imposter, the bogus yucca moth, which does no work whatsoever to pollinate its host plant. It rides off of the pollination work of the true yucca moth. Adding more pollen to the stamen would just be redundant, they seem to think (correctly so). They lay their eggs in the scape (stalk) of the yucca. Here’s what’s really interesting: if none of the yucca flowers were pollinated by the true yucca moth, the stalk that the bogus moth larva feed on withers and dies because there are no seed pods to support growth.
Without the active pollination by the true yucca moth, the true yucca moth’s larva would have no seed pod to feed off of, the bogus yucca moth’s larva would perish, and the yucca itself would not have a seed crop that year. How crazy is that?!
In April Nathan and I took a certifiably insane trip down the West Coast. We started out in Seattle, Washington, then drove all the way down to San Jose, California for my cousin’s wedding! It was the best trip we’ve ever been on so far. We found 16 out of the 19 salamander species we were after in a matter of four and a half days and three states. The best part of the whole trip, though, was spending time with family and new friends at the end of our herping trip in San Martin, California. My cousin, Emma, got married to Matt and they had an absolutely incredible pirate-themed wedding! So much fun! I have a huge family and we’d all been anticipating a get-together since the COVID pandemic started. So it was one of the biggest family gatherings we’ve ever had. Party, party, party! I loved helping my family with the celebration set-up, eating fresh fruit, sourdough bread and Grammaw’s Italian tetu cookies; dancing, visiting, singing, and all that fun stuff.
So I’ll start with the wedding party and family photos. It was my favorite part of the trip, after all. By the way, if you are ever at a big event and want to get tons of photos, give a camera to a kid and they’ll capture moments you’d never be able to capture just by yourself! Nathan and I made good friends with a young man, Garren, and he loved taking photos with my camera. It was so cool to look back at the photos he took because he captured things that happened that I couldn’t be involved in all at once. With so many family members that I hadn’t seen in a long time (some well over a decade), I wished I could listen to everyone’s conversations all at once. I didn’t want to miss anything!
The groom making shrimp gumboMe, Cousin Emma, Matt, and Nathan
Love this picture of my parents!
My sister Julie, Mom, and Nathan took a hike in Henry Cowell State Park near San Francisco. We girls found this perfect patch of light on a redwood log and just had to get a photoshoot! I loved hiking there and getting time to talk with my sister, Julie. We also went to Capitola Beach to window shop, eat good food, and watch the beach activities.
A mischievous park volunteer at Henry Cowell SP
Classic, just classic.
Nathan and Me at Henry Cowell State Park. The jacket I’m wearing was made by my Grammaw for my father when he was 18. He then gave it to me.
Nathan and my sister Julie having a cute chat while Mom and I window shop.
Mom treated us to a really yummy restaurant at Capitola Beach. I’m drinking my first boba tea from Thai place that was next door.
Our herping part of the trip in WA, OR, and CA was spectacularly beautiful, but also fast-paced and hellbent for leather. We slept in the car a few times, drove late into the night, back-tracked hours to and fro to catch good weather for our specific salamander targets, got poison oak that lasted for weeks, you get the point! But we hit an unbelievable amount of our target species, just getting amazed over and over again that we kept finding our salamanders. The first part of the trip lacked much human interaction, so I’ll skip most of the nitty-gritty field herping details. The video below covers more of the fun details. We saw my top goal species of the trip: clouded salamander and sierra nevada ensatina. We also saw the rest of the torrent salamander clade. Enjoy the photos!
western long-toed salamandercascade torrent salamanderolympic torrent salamandercolumbia torrent salamander
If you have pawpaw seedlings that are planted in the sun, here’s an easy solution to provide shade for them before they die from sun scorch. Pawpaw seedlings are fragile and can scorch in full sun in their first 2-3 years. I planted my pawpaw seedlings from the Missouri Conservation Department with intended sun exposure (some morning shade) so that I have maximized fruit production when they mature. My other goal with my pawpaw trees is to attract zebra swallowtails since the pawpaw is their only host plant for laying eggs and caterpillar development.
Pawpaws need a little extra care their first couple years to prevent them from dying in the sun. They normally grow under full canopies in ravine areas with organic-rich, well-draining soils and are tropical and spindly looking under a closed canopy forest. When grown in the sun however, pawpaws are much fuller and produce much more fruit.
I needed a quick solution because I put off shading my seedlings for too long and they were starting to look stressed from sun exposure this May. No time for waiting! I headed to Walmart and purchased some shirt tailor for $1.97/yard and made these sturdy, water-permeable white shade bags! I used about a yard and a half for each bag. Shirt tailor is very lightweight, but also stiff so it doesn’t slouch under the weight of rain water, weighing down the seedlings. For each bag I cut 1 1/2 yard length of shirt tailor, folded it in half, and sewed up two sides to make a bag. I also sewed for a cinch string at the bottom to tie to a bamboo steak as the pawpaws get taller. With our high winds, I don’t want the pawpaw bags blowing away so they had to be staked down or tied to the bamboo support that holds up each bag.
I made some black bags from cheap landscaping weed fabric as a trial run to see if the heat radiation makes a difference to the seedlingspawpaw shade bag staked down and propped up with a bamboo stick
I’m hoping these homemade bags will last until next spring and that the pawpaws won’t outgrow them too fast. If they do, I have a pile of large burlap bags that I snagged for free from Ace Hardware that should be great for them when they get bigger.
Me with tree seedlings from the Missouri Department of Conservationzebra swallowtailzebra swallowtail eggs on a mature pawpaw tree leafearly pawpaw fruit not yet ripened
Ah, what a wonderful, bright and colorful day it was Sunday! After church we headed towards a glade and picked up our good friend, Trevor, on the way. We drove about an hour and a half and reached our destination. The landscape was cheerfully dotted with some of my old standby glade favorites: indian paintbrush, hoary puccoon, shooting star, bird’s foot violet, wild hyacinth, may apples, American smoketree, fire pink, and prairie dock. They all look amazing back-lit by the sun and have a brightness to them like suncatchers. I just love springtime!
We were after an extra special snake species, the variable ground snake. They are extremely fossorial and therefore difficult to find. To boot, they only occur in a couple glades in Missouri (elsewhere in the states further to our west they are easier to find). Nathan and I spent hours and hours last year trying to find them, and even other folks who looked for them last year didn’t see hide nor hair of variable ground snakes. But this year has been different. A couple of our friends had already seen them in the past week, so we had a really good feeling that today was the day! I was so stoked to be the one to find our lifer variable ground snake.
One of Missouri’s finest snakes, the variable ground snakeMe with the ground snakeNathanTrevor
male Eastern collared lizard sunning itself for hunting and courtship displaysTrevor trying to catch the collared lizard
The American smoketree is one of my favorite trees in Missouri and they are common in glades. They are so smooth in the color transition of their leaves and have peachy, soft leaves in the fall.
The star plant of the day, a “one-flowered cancer root”. They don’t have chlorophyll an are parasitic on other plants’ roots.
There’s a huge difference between finding and just “seeing”. That’s why, to me, finding reptiles and amphibians in their natural habitats is even more interesting than keeping them in captivity or seeing them in zoos. Salamanders, of all the reptiles and amphibians (“herps”), are the most reliable to find. Salamanders don’t move around very much at all in the entirety of their lives (compared with Eastern indigo snakes which can have individual home ranges up to 1,200 acres!). Even the more migratory Ambystomids like spotted salamanders and marbled salamanders are decently predictable to find. If you know a salamander species’ micro-habitat, seasonality, and the weather in which they are most active, you stand a good chance at finding even the rarest of them.
Nathan has had a passion for salamanders ever since he was a kid and I joined him in his goal to see every salamander species in the U.S. Since childhood I’ve been an all-around field herper (someone who looks or reptiles and amphibians in the wild), but I’ve grown to love finding salamanders most of all because they are so much more reliable and predictable (i.e., more rewarding- ha!) to seek and find than, say, snakes and lizards.
So here is another episode in our search to find and photograph every salamander species in the United States. This time we had an exceptionally rare salamander on the docket that was discovered in 2011, the Ouachita streambed salamander. Miraculously, we were able to get in touch with a wildlife biologist in Arkansas who knew the exact specifics on how and where to find the Ouachita streambed salamander.
For the first part of our trip, Nathan and I left at midnight and drove on Friday March 18th to Louisiana in order to try our hand at the last slimy salamander on our lifer list. We were feeling quite silly from lack of sleep. At the beginning of the trail Nathan sang his little jingle parody of Louisiana Saturday Night that had me cracking up. He loves coming up with parody songs to country music that involves field herping. We’ve been to this spot before with no luck of turning one up in January 2021. This day we hiked and turned over so many logs that it seemed like we would strike out again. I occupied myself by taking photos of the scenery between flipping logs.
back-lit ferns in a seepage
back-lit “suncatcher” maple samaras
Nathan turned up this beautiful Louisiana slimy salamander that was hiding in the crevice of a rotting log. Now we’ve seen all of the members of the slimy salamander clan!
Louisiana slimy salamander
After finding the slimy, we drove straight to Arkansas to meet up with wildlife biologist, Kelly Irwin, and eat dinner at his old standby Mexican restaurant. As the sun went down, we three headed to the one location where Ouachita streambed salamanders are known to occur. They are best found at nighttime since they are light-sensitive and feed on nocturnal aquatic isopods. As we put on our disinfected boots and gathered flashlights, we saw a bat flying overhead. A nice bycatch- ha! Kelly had quite the amusing assemblage of flashlights. He strapped on his caving helmet with a duo of lights securely zip-tied, and toted his trusty diving flashlight in hand.
We walked to the stream as Kelly Irwin explained to us the most likely reason why these salamanders have such a small home range. They rely on pristine streams with chert and novaculite rock to keep the streambed loosened. Here’s why this is key. They are fully aquatic and move up and down through the loose gravel with the rise and fall of the water table to avoid drought. The Ouachita streambed salamander population is extremely sensitive to “bedload” sedimentation. They probably had a much larger home-range before, but everywhere nearby that would otherwise be suitable habitat, has seen historic timber harvesting which caused sedimentation that filled in the gaps in the streambed rock, preventing the Ouachita streambed salamander to burrow up and down with the water table in the summer droughts.
To catch a Ouachita streambed, it is essential to have a “twiggler” in hand. This is Kelly’s name for a small stick used for scaring these aquatic salamanders so they’ll wiggle into your net. You can see this method being used in the photo below. I love this photo so much! It has an element of humor and also sci-fi with the glow seemingly coming from the mysterious critter below the water.
Kelly Irwin and Nathan nabbing the second Ouachita streambed salamander of the night while I photographed the first.
Ouachita streambed salamander
Many-ribbed salamander larvae
There is a very similar-looking salamander larvae that lives sympatrically with the Ouachita streambed salamander, which is why the latter went unnoticed for so long. They look alike at first glance, but when comparing one against the other, the differences begin to clear. The Ouachita streambed salamander is less patterned than the many-ribbed salamander, less colored, and more importantly, the Ouachita streambeds have a boxer-like flare to their snout and has recessed, black eyes. They also differ genetically, which confirmed that they were a seperate species in 2011. Compare the two photos above and see if you can notice the morphological differences between the two.
Nathan and I were so excited to see this unique and incredibly rare salamander in it’s own habitat with one of the fellows who discovered it!
A vivid memory I have from my childhood is the time I realized I was actually grateful for work. My Sunday school class was merged with the older kids in Youth Group one Sunday because my Sunday school teacher was out of town. The man who taught the combined youth group spoke about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the punishment of sin, and the resulting curse resulting in hard toil (amongst more grave things). He jovially asked the classroom “Who would like it if they never had to work another day in their life?” Every one but me raised their hand. I was about 10 or so at the time.
I’ve looked back on that memory often quizzically. Why would I not choose the work-free life? Part of me was probably trying to be different, but I also really meant it and took the question seriously. That memory is seared in my mind because it was such a potent memory of how even as a child I realized there is benefit to the creativity, challenge, and accomplishment of hard work. At that time in my childhood, “work” included cleaning out the cow stalls in the barn and dumping the wheel barrow out in the compost pit, digging up thistles in the pasture, raking leaves, picking up walnuts, hauling hay bales, doing household and animal chores, volunteering with 4-H community projects, etc. Of course, I had the benefit of doing those things with my sisters, so I had good company in the process.
Me and my younger sister, Julie, hauling leaves we raked out to the compost pit.
I’m grateful that my parents instilled in me an appreciation for work. Back then I never took too much pleasure in any of those chores, but at the same time I at least had a notion of the value in work. Even more than that, I hate the feeling of being lazy and putting things off until a situation gets bad enough that it requires even more work than it would’ve had it been addressed initially. Hard work became a habit to me, and now I can find enjoyment in work.
Work is tough, but being lazy is tougher in the long run.
The topic of work enjoyment is one of my favorites because if you can learn to find enjoyment in work, boy you can really fly. I say “find enjoyment in work” instead of “enjoy work” for a very specific reason. The joy in work is never a constant; it comes and it goes. But if you can cultivate the times that you do enjoy work, you will find that you can sustain and persevere.
Many of my most treasured memories are from experiencing life with other people through work. My life has been filled to the brim with wonderful stories to recall (I write them down for later entertainment), and many have been through the trials and triumphs of work. I’ve never had a job that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy some aspect of. Of course, every job also has it’s unique negative aspects. If you think the grass is greener on the other side, you’ll switch jobs and discover a different set of challenges, so make your risk-benefit calculations carefully. I’ve had 16 payed jobs since I was 18. Mind you, a lot of that was seasonal work (check out coolworks.com for amazing adventure jobs). I’m 24 now. Throughout the years I’ve made a list of the very top things I look for in a job that I’ll get to here shortly.
Working in the Southeast Conservation Corps in 2016 was one of the very best yet toughest times of my life.
Have some life goals that you take seriously because then you will have a better reason and motivation for why you work. Some of my financial goals throughout the years have ranged from being able to earn enough money to buy more pet reptiles (ha!), to saving up a nest egg for marriage, to saving up for a house, and now saving up to be able to provide a good life for kids (Lord willing) and have enough to live generously. Sort of the Dave Ramsey take on things, I guess. There was a time when I worked three jobs seven days a week without a day off for month-long stretches. That sounds pretty crazy to most people these days, but my husband and I had a goal of where we wanted to be.
It is hard to fail; but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the present, merely means that there has been stored-up effort in the past.
Theodore Roosevelt, Chicago Speech 1899
As an adult, saving money is every bit as important as earning it. You need to have control over finances so that money doesn’t have control over you. Your goals may not be as far out of reach as you may think. And when the day comes that you finally reach your goal, it will feel even better than you had even imagined all awhile. It’s worth sacrificing your short-term gratification to reach more fulfilling long-term goals.
The job title doesn’t matter so much as what the work environment is.
A paying job is a small piece of your overall “life’s work” because some of the most important work you will ever do is unpaid. Therefore, it is important to find enjoyment and honest pride in the product of your life’s work as a whole.
I don’t think you can count on a job or career to make you happy. You could have your ultimate dream job and still find it dissatisfying if you are around negative people or you don’t thrive there like you pictured you would. Find a job, do your best, and make an effort to bring out the enjoyment in your work. There are ways that will increase your likelihood that you will be happy at a certain job, but you also have to do your part to approach every day with a good mindset.
Even in little tasks, do your best. Even when no one will notice, do your best. If you have ordinary tasks, do an extraordinary job of it and you will carry those habits to better things.
Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.
Luke 16:10, NIV
Compile your own list of things that are important to you in a job. You may agree with my list here:
To me, comradery is EVERYTHING. I’ve made up my mind several times over in every job I’ve had that I can do just about anything with good company. I am most motivated by my companions. I can’t tolerate an unhealthy workplace for long even if I were to have my “dream job”.
Diversity of tasks to keep things interesting
Positively impact peoples’ lives
Work for bosses who are enthusiastic about what they do. If your bosses are enthusiastic about what they do, that will rub off on you and you will learn more because they too are trying to improve constantly.
Ability to learn and improve continually.
Be known as one of the best in the trade/business, and love the results of your work. This is a haughty goal, but one that’s worth at least striving towards.
Outdoors if possible, but all other preferences override this one.
The Bible has so many concise, potent truths about work, especially in Proverbs (probably my favorite book of the Bible).
Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.
How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.
This has been the best winter yet! I have so much to look forward to and plan for now that my husband and I own a little property. Whenever I walk outside I imagine how we can make this place a productive biological haven. It’s good to brainstorm, and I do often. It’s good to think, imagine, and dream because by doing that you are looking forward for what could be possible. You become aware of so much by gleaning ideas from books, podcasts, conversing with a friend, and then brainstorming with that knowledge. The more you learn and become aware, the more possibilities you are aware of and the more you can enjoy life.
Before the snow fell this past week, I planted all of my native seed that requires cold-moist stratification for optimum germination. It’s amazing just how many native perennial species require seed cold-moist stratification! It’s something I never knew about until a year ago. The freeze-thaw cycle throughout late winter and early spring will work each seed into the ground at the proper depth based on each seed’s size. It also stimulates germination for the proper time to start growing.
I sowed my competitive “weed seed” patch after the snow and waited for calm air so that the wind-dispersal seeds wouldn’t drift away.
I’m a little nervous that the time I spent researching and carefully selecting every type of native seed for my garden will be in vain. It’s just so weird planting in the snow! But it is such a fun and hopeful thing to do in the winter. Even though everything is dormant outside, I imagine the array of color that will bloom from each seed I plant.
Most seeds I planted before the snow fell. None of the seeds I planted pre-snow had wind-dispersal filaments because they would’ve blown away as the snow came down with wind.
When selecting native seeds for my garden I studied books, online articles, prairies, and discussed with local native-meadow owners over the course of about a year or so. The most important factor to me is having enough native species in bloom (whether that be tree, bush, perennial or annual) for beneficial pollinators in every active season. The general minimum recommendation for the amount of flower species to be in bloom is three species per season: early spring, spring, summer, fall, late fall.
I ordered several tree seedlings from the Missouri Department of Conservation that will be arriving anytime now. Once mature, some trees and shrubs produce a very high density of pollen and nectar, especially native willows (important as early nectar/pollen source), maples (not silver maple as they are wind-pollinated), basswood, red buckeye (especially for hummingbirds), catalpa (catalpa moth caterpillars are outstanding for fishing), sumac, sweetspire, New Jersey Tea, elderberry, false indigo bush, and many more. We often take trees and shrubs for granted when it comes to flower production.
Just as important as nectar and pollen sources, think about host plants for the beneficial insect species you want to attract. Insects are at the bottom of the food chain and, especially moths and butterflies, rely on only a handful of plants that provide the “just right” chemical compounds to feed the growing caterpillars. Some insects I’d like to see a lot of here are tortoise shell beetles which prefer potato and morning glory vines; clearwing hummingbird moths which lay their eggs on trumpet vines, coral honeysuckle vines, and coralberry bush; monarch butterflies which lay their eggs solely on milkweeds; and yucca moths which have a strict interdependent relationship with yuccas. Therefore, I will sow new seeds, plant a few trees, and maintain for the bees what I already have accordingly. Ha, I like how that sounds.
Tiger swallowtails lay their eggs on tulip poplars, wafer ash, black cherry, and cottonwood trees for the growing caterpillars to feed on.
Clearwing moths are one of my favorite insects. The host plants of their caterpillars are native vines like coral honeysuckle, trumpet vine and coralberry brush.
I also look for what plant species will do well in my sandy, well-draining soil. Another factor for selecting what to plant is to consider what grows locally (you can also collect seed locally on roadsides). As much as I want to attract zebra swallowtails by planting paw paw trees for them to lay their eggs on, it may be difficult because paw paw trees are more of a lowland/ravine type of tree that likes acidic soil with organic matter. Even though paw paws may not do well in my soil, I’m going to try anyway.
three zebra swallowtail eggs on this pawpaw leaf
Think about what could potentially be the most competitive species and do not mix them with your most treasured, delicate species. Examples of competitive perennial species are milkweeds, bee-balm, black-eyed susans, rattlesnake master, ironweed, blue mistflower, anise hyssop, etc. I planted a “weedy patch” of common ironweed, green milkweed, common milkweed, boneset, and bee-balm that Nathan won’t have to mow much in the summer.
Are there any plants you want that are somewhat parasitic on other plants? I sowed indian paintbrush among my grouping of penstemon because indian paintbrush is hemiparasitic and grows better when there is a host plant root system, and they tend to like penstemon.
Indian paintbrush, often found on glades and prairies, is hemiparasitic and takes benefit from other plants’ roots
Grasses are important to incorporate into your native planting if you are able to give your native garden the benefit of an occasional controlled burn. I am fond of little bluestem, splitbeard bluestem (my ultimate favorite), indiangrass, prairie dropseed, and oak sedge. Grasses are an integral fuel source for a controlled burn. A lot of native perennials thrive the year following a thoughtfully-timed controlled burn.
Sedges and groundcovers, though they don’t produce impressive blooms, are good to act as “green mulch” to hold moisture at the surface of the soil and also to shade new native perennial and annual seedlings in their vulnerable new-growth stage.
The brown and teal hues of indiangrass is beautiful in the fall
Splitbeard bluestem is beautiful in the fall when the sun hits the inflorescence
Prairies and many other ecosystems benefit from properly-timed fires
Butterfly milkweed bee balm, and gray-headed coneflower (I think) at Prairie State Park, Missouri in July
I hope some of these tips have inspired you to plant some natives in your own back-yard!
Tonight I listened to a podcast by Mikhaila Peterson and Jonathan Pageau titled “Finding God”. The specific topics they discussed weren’t exactly the things that were spinning in my head while listening to a certain segment of their podcast. Ever have that happen to you? Where you are listening and the speaker says one sentence that drives your mind instantly towards a realization that you’ve been trying to articulate and make sense of?
Mikhaila and Jonathan’s discussions inspired me and brought thoughts from all aspects of my life together towards a final realization of what I have always known but not quite fully understood: faith must be accompanied by action. What is the importance of having faith and why is it that faith without works is dead? James 2:14-26
Without faith in what could be possible and without faith in what could, quite possibly, actuallyexist already (*ahem* God), you will never find out whether it could become- or is already- reality. You have to act on faith in order to find out. You have to have faith and take action towards a manifestation of a vision and hope in your mind before you will understand its realization.
Ok, let me lay out more thoughts by bringing in some real-world examples, because I’m not writing solely about the saving kind of faith. I’m pointing out a parallel between our earthly world and having a relationship with God that produces fruit in your life.
Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector, had a sort of faith that there would be food for her- food!- if she daringly crossed over into China from where she had seen fireworks and smelled food from her home in North Korea. In North Korea, Yeonmi and her older sister hunted for locusts to eat and had lived their lives on so little food. She was given a glimpse of what could be and she acted on a sort of “faith”. She had a meager faith (as big as a mustard seed, you could say) in something as basic as food, that when she acted on that faith it transformed her life forever. In North Korea, the citizens are propagandized that their country is the richest in the world and that they are better off economically than anyone else! Their government purposely suppresses their minds to the point that there is little chance of them having the faith and vision for a better life.
As another example, if you have become too cynical and believe it’s a wasted effort trying to make friends anymore, that’s exactly what will happen for a long while until you are lucky enough to find a person who actually does still have an enduring faith in what friendship can really be. You’ll hardly have any friends if you’re too cynical and have lost faith and hope for what sort of friendships could be possible.
If you have had too many bad experiences in churches and have given up on trying altogether, you will never find a church that is alive, restoring, and serving like it’s meant to. Nathan and I had just enough faith left that we might finally find a church that would feel like home. Just this past year we became members of the best church I’ve ever been a part of and it feels like home. It is a church that restores, holds each other accountable, serves the community, and most importantly, preaches the Truth from God’s Word.
Nathan and I have had serious discussions this past year about whether we really want to bring children into this world. We have considered solely adopting children. Yesterday I realized that the mind not to have children because of fear for the future is a defeated, hopeless, and faithless way to look at life. I have faith in God, and with that, I have faith that all things are possible through Him. I have faith through God that life can continue to be good despite the hardships and terror that could come to us and our children (adopted or not) amidst life’s beauty.
If you believe deep down that you are destined for bad things to continually happen to you and that life is meaningless, you lose faith and vision for what could be and what actually exists (God *elbow elbow*) out there waiting for you to discover. You have no hope, so therefore there is scant faith there in your soul to act on. If you muster the faith and believe it is possible that your life could be better, you will act on that faith and discover the Way (John 14:6) that makes your life joyful. If you are hopeless, you take no action because you falsely believe that there’s nothing that will make a positive difference in your life.
So in a Christian sense and in a practical sense, faith without works is dead. That is because if you don’t truly believe and hope in something, you won’t act upon it. When you believe in God and that the Bible is true, you will do your best to try to live out the truth through God’s grace and you will produce “fruit” like the Bible talks about in John 15:5. In your day to day living, if you keep your head up and look forward with hope and faith that your world can be better, you will take action to make it better.
When you look at a desert in the heat of summer, you’d never believe without prior knowledge that there could ever be plentiful blooms in such a place. Yet, in the spring the desert is carpeted in blooms. There’s more to life than what meets the eye. With faith, God can change a desert soul into a beautiful garden. So, what do you believe is possible? With God, all things are possible. Matthew 19:23-30.
If you want wisdom and to know what the truth is, open the Bible. There is more condensed truth in the Bible than you can find anywhere else.
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Hebrews 11:6
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
James 2:26
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1
Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.
Romans 10:17
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
John 15:5
Here’s the podcast I mentioned earlier. Even if you don’t agree with everything they say, it’s good to get those gears grinding.
Nathan and I took a whirlwind road trip from Missouri to the Southeastern states in search of salamanders to knock off our life list. We have a fun goal to see all of the salamander species in the United States in our lifetime, and we’ve now seen 145 of the current 249 species. My boss gave me several days off for the holidays so Nathan wanted to make the most of it. I was slightly dreading all of the driving, but all in all it was a fantastic trip. The people who we met and spent time with really made the trip a blast! There was one fella who we ran into on a Georgia trail who we never would’ve dreamed the odds of us meeting at random. I’ll get to that later in the blog, because it is so awesome!
As a side note, I don’t include specific location names because many of these salamanders are protected and in vulnerable habitats. We spray our boots with disinfectant between locations to prevent potential disease spread.
It’s almost customary for us to drive through the first night on long road trips. Packed with a trip CD, minnow traps, cameras, pork BBQ for our lunches, and other typical vacation items, Nathan started out driving from Aurora, MO. He got us all the way to Knoxville, TN when we swapped driving at about 2 AM. Even though it was late, I had a flow of energy running through my veins driving through Appalachia again, my favorite place in the world. After grabbing some McDonald’s breakfast, we arrived at our first herping spot near Greenville, NC at 9 AM to meet up with Dr. David Beamer, Biology Instructor and Lead Researcher at Nash Community College.
This guy’s the real deal. Amongst many other things, Dr. Beamer has been doing genomic research on salamander species, particularly dusky salamanders and two-lined salamanders. He may just be the reason we never reach our goal to see every salamander species because there will be new splits to species, darn it. But it’s all good and he’s an awesome guy.
We were targeting a Neuse river waterdog at our first spot. Before we got started, Dr. Beamer explained that the leaves we dip-netted in the stream had to be “well-seasoned” with decay/micro-organisms and have a bycatch of eels. We were on the right track; we dip-netted a dwarf waterdog or two, then six juvenile Neuse river waterdogs. Adult Neuse river waterdogs are absolutely beautiful with their black spotting, but the juevniles are more gold-striped with a couple tiny black dots.
Nathan got “set free” (a term coined by Dr. Beamer) when he tripped in the water while dip-netting and got his boots filled with water. “You’re a free man!” Dr. Beamer pronounced. Don’t have to fret and teeter over staying dry now. Like a couple of crazies, Nathan and I neglected to bring hip waders on this trip focused on aquatic and swamp-dwelling salamanders.
Dwarf waterdog
A tiny Neuse river waterdog. They get large black spots as they grow.
Me with the catch of the day
Next, we zipped over to another couple different locations to get our other lifer salamander species that live in different habitats. Dr. Beamer turned up a Chamberlain’s dwarf salamander and a southern dusky salamander under some wet leaf litter. Later at a swamp, Nathan and Dr. Beamer caught eight many-lined salamanders. They like hiding in partially-submerged small stick piles pushed up together. Dr. Beamer found a particularly good stick pile and said it was by far the best stick pile we had come across yet (it didn’t look that out-of-the-ordinary to me, but if he says so…) We removed some leaf litter, then Dr. Beamer made a tsunami, swooshing up the muck with his boots for a many-lined salamander. If you took a step back, it looked like we were actual lunatics. We snapped a few photos and talked about our other hobbies outside of herping on the way back to our cars before saying goodbye.
Chamberlains dwarf salamander
Many-lined salamanders are so hard to photograph. They just look so weird and deflated out of the water.
Many-lined salamander
Many-lined salamander habitat
As we drove to our AirBNB and thought about what to have for dinner, I had the random thought to check to see if Fayetteville, NC had an Afghan restaurant. Our absolute favorite meal is Kabuli Pulao and we’d only had it once in Washington D.C. in 2019 but talked about it ever since. I’m telling you, I’ve been on a roll with good inklings lately. Fayetteville just happened to have an amazing Afghan restaurant called Afghan Kebob. Their lamb on kabuli rice is just… so indescribably delicious! Awesome way to ring in the holidays.
Well, that was it for Greater North Carolina! It was Christmas Day and time to head to South Crackerbarrel. Sometimes we have an easy time finding the rarest salamanders, while something as common as a slimy salamander can vex us. We couldn’t find our lifer salamander on Christmas. In the afternoon we tried to see Fort Sumter National Monument, but didn’t realize it is miles off the coast and hardly visible from the shore.
It was dinnertime. And there was just one problem, it’s Christmas and no restaurants were open except Waffle House. Maybe it was all punishment for not spending Christmas in the traditional American way. Maybe we should’ve stuck a Rudolf nose on our car for the trip, at least acknowledging that it was Christmas. (bad theology?)
We reluctantly went into a Wafflehouse outside of Charleston and quickly turned around after the only employee in the entire building grouchily told us “Take-out only!” and we glimpsed at hashbrowns and pancake mix all over the place. Nathan and I got back in the car and looked at eachother like:
“That was a doozy, what now?”
“If worst comes to shove, we’ll just go down the road to the next Waffle House”.
And that’s what we did. Thankfully they ended up being a total 180 from the previous one; the workers and customers were all jolly, cutting up, and having a good time. We took-out and got to our AirBNB, hung out, and watched Slumdog Millionaire on the TV. We don’t have a TV in our house so it’s kinda nice to watch movies and football while on vacation in the evenings.
Thankfully the next day had a favorable turn of events. When we aren’t finding anything good herp-wise that’s when I occupy myself with bugs and plants. I rolled a log and found a bombardier beetle! I was so excited to see one and it even let out a few puffs of its toxic chemical defense. That startled me pretty good but I was fascinated. As I was taking a video of the beetle, Nathan hollered that he had found our South Carolina slimy salamander. That’s the way it goes, I get occupied with taking photos while Nathan off and finds our lifer salamander.
South Carolina slimy salamandersome sort of bombardier beetleNathan and Me
Savannah slimy salamander
Here’s where things get interesting. Since we found the only lifer salamander that we needed from Georgia on this trip, we had a lot of time to kill. On a lark, Nathan suggested we go mull around George L. State Park on the slight chance that we might see an Eastern diamondback rattlesnake out basking on this 80 degree day. There was a boy in a cowboy hat near the park office persistently cracking a bullwhip. Perhaps a new Christmas present he’d received? Random, but I applaud his boldness! While walking on the sandy forested trail, we saw a guy casually peering towards a log with binoculars draped from his neck.
“Have you seen any good birds today?” I asked as we came towards him on the trail.
“Oh, I was just looking at mushrooms”, he replied.
“Oh cool, you use binoculars to look for mushrooms?”
“No, I use them to look for birds.”
Oh dear, now I really did it. Trying to be friendly and it ends up being total flop… As we passed on the trail we both chuckled awkwardly. We walked back towards the parking lot through the sawmill building and I spotted a good place for a portrait of Nathan.
We snapped a few photos of eachother and saw the same guy coming back towards the sawmill too. Crap, I have to face him again. He offered to take our photo and as he was doing so, Nathan inquired about his outdoor hobbies.
“So, are you a birder? A botanist?… Herper?”
“Goodman!! You know what herping is!”
At least Nathan had some success striking up a conversation with this guy. As you can imagine, we got into an interesting discussion. We told him our names and that we were on this side of the states to further our every-salamander-in-the-US efforts. But this guy required a bit of prodding to figure out exactly who he was; very mysterious. It took some effort to figure out whether he was genuine or playing along with some game. Or maybe he thought we couldn’t handle the shock all at once…
Turns out, Roger Luckenbach is a retired biology professor from California, has led expeditions in Central America, has studied whales, sea turtles, and federally endangered Santa Cruz long-toed salamanders for quite a few years. As soon as he said their scientific name, Ambystoma macrodactylum croceum, we knew he was the real deal.
Nathan talked to him further while I went into the park gift shop to get a cool color-changing magic mug they had. Roger ended up inviting us over to the family farm to eat Christmas Dinner Round 2 and we took him up on his offer. Their home-grown butterbeans and queen sweet corn was delicious! Over dinner we talked of expeditions, whales, salamanders, Vietnam protests at UC Berkeley, and John Grisham movies. The family showed us great hospitality and we were both so blown away at the circumstances we found ourselves in.
Roger told us that he, too, ended up going to the park that afternoon on a whim. He had to drive to take the trash to the dump and figured that since he made it that far, he might as well go and check up on how the gopher tortoises were doing in their burrows. He told us that whenever we are in California next to reach out- can’t wait! What an awesome, unlikely meet-up with some great folks.
The next day was mostly driving because we had little success dip-netting any sirens. We went to a swamp that we had been to earlier in the year on our Deep South trip and found a coastal plain dwarf salamander. We grabbed a Chick-Fil-A dinner and crashed at our AirBNB.
Coastal plain dwarf salamander
Coastal plain dwarf salamander habitat
Cypress knees
The next morning we met up with our friend, Dr. Noah Mueller. The night before he had set two crawfish traps, baited with canned cajun-seasoned seafood of some sort, in a little pond created by a fallen tree in a swamp. In one of his traps was this massive two-toed amphiuma!
Massive two-toed amphiuma
Our next spot was focused on finding reptiles, but we didn’t see hardly any. Again, this is when I occupy myself with bugs and plants and such:
British soldier lichen in the dappled light
Go to the ant, thou sluggard. I loved watching these ants. They had a strange collection of tiny charcoal pieces on one side of the mound and I wonder what that’s about.
Fresh deep digger scarab beetle mound. I loved scooping up the cool sand piles that were peppered across the ground. I just loved the texture of the piles! The beetles somehow managed to put the purest, cleanest sand on the top of the pile.
There were so many spider webs!
Little tree frog
As we walked back towards the car, I did a double-take and leaned in to get a better look at weird clusters on a pine tree sapling. Right as I leaned in, I noticed there was a tiny treefrog! I call this the happiness treefrog. To find happiness, you can’t just flail around in life searching for happiness. Happiness will be found when you stop looking for it and pursue the meaningful things in life.
Noah asked us “How would you like to a go to a private biological preserve for lunch?” “Wow, sounds awesome!” So we headed down some winding sandy roads to Ashton Biological Preserve and spotted a few gopher tortoises along the way outside their burrows. The preserve was founded by Ray and Pat Ashton to protect the unique ecosystem there and also to build up the largest breeding facility for critically endangered Madagascar radiated tortoises.
When we arrived an intern, Chev, had an Eastern diamondback outside for a stroll in the sun and let us snap some photos and practice handling it with snake hooks (I’m sure I made Chev cringe with my lack of technique).
captive Eastern diamondback
Chase Pirtle gave us the grand tour of the place. It was so awesome to take a step into another world and learn so much since I’ve been out of the herpetoculture scene for years. The tortoises were so perky and came up to us as we walked from enclosure to enclosure. Chase knew all of their names and each one’s favorite place to be scratched (they can feel through all that keratin when you scratch them).
Chase told us about how for over a decade he has orchestrated the workings of this place and the challenges he deals with and has overcome. He showed us a butterfly garden, a young mini orchard, and the bins where he is growing produce for the tortoises.
“There’s the cactus I’ve been growing in elephant manure for the tortoises-“
“Did you just say elephant manure?”
“Oh yeah, my neighbor has one over there!”
This is Florida, of course, how silly of me. Least to say, Chase is quite an impressive individual who had the vision to bring the preserve and tortoise breeding program to what it is now. He has an uncanny knack for networking and make things happen successfully. Honestly, it was really cool to meet him.
We also got to see the box turtle that David Attenborough had filmed with on location for Life in Cold Blood. The founder, Ray Ashton (now deceased) had also been good friends with the Irwins in Australia and did some tortoise dealings with Bob Irwin back in the day.
I feel so lucky just to share a day in the life of these folks that we get to meet up with. We live in such an incredible time. I think the ~90 year-old folks now have seen more change in this world than anyone ever has or ever will see, but I think our time we are living in is the most prosperous time there ever has been. I try to make the most of my life and not take for granted this time that we live in.
Chase Pirtle, Nathan, and me
Leopard tortoise at Ashton Biological PreserveMe with some of the radiated tortoisesNathan with one of the radiated tortoises.
That evening we gave another shot for dip-netting sirens, but to no avail. We did accomplish catching some peninsula newts and disturbing some fishermen, though. It was getting to be around dinner time and we were starting to rather see a burger than a siren. We grabbed some Chick-Fil-A again and headed back to our AirBNB.
We got to meet our AirBNB host, Jean, and she visited with us at the dinner table. She is quite a delightful person who has done a lot of travelling, works at a hospital, and is an in-home baby nurse. I loved asking about her advice for delivering babies and the birthing process. That’s when Nathan exited the scene to go watch football. HA! I say again, I love the cool people we get to meet along our trips.
The next morning we woke up while it was still dark out to make it to a spot for the true southern dusky salamander. It is one of the last spots in Florida known to have a healthy population of them. We have already seen southern dusky salamanders, but the clade will be split up (thanks, Dr. Beamer!) in upcoming years, so we might as well make sure we have the “true” southern dusky in our pocket, so to speak. I have seen 21 of the current 22 dusky salamanders in the U.S. Most of them are… a bit drab in color, to be honest. The prospect of more of them being split up because of genetics and slight differences in appearance is a bit tantalizing.
true southern dusky salamander
Sphagnum moss, red from sun exposure (?)
After finding a couple southern dusky salamanaders, we headed with Noah Mueller to another vast swamp in search of extremely elusive one-toed amphiumas and even more secretive mud salamanders. Noah told us that even people who research one-toed amphiumas have a hard time finding them at times. You really had to watch your step, because in some areas of the swamp there could be a sudden deep spot that your boot will sink into. I have to say though, ya know, not to brag or anything, but I’m pretty proud of my swamp and cypress-knee negotiating skills. I didn’t end up like this guy who came before us and had to walk out of there… barefoot. Yeesh! Nathan and I had been to this same spot in March and it was miserable with mosquitoes and gnats. It was a huge relief that it was much cooler and bug-free this time.
One unlucky person had to walk out of the swamp… barefoot.
This whole trip I hadn’t been the one to find the “first” of anything. I was pretty much always taking photos of something else when the lifer was found. But this was my time. I flipped a perfect-looking partially-submerged log. Huh, no one-toed amphiuma. I kicked up the muck that was directly under the log’s imprint and saw a small amphiuma wiggling and weaving into the muck.
I’m sure I sounded like a chicken off in the distance to Nathan and Noah as I kept seeing it and losing it again and yelping with excitement. These things live in the mud, folks, and to boot they are super slippery and easy to lose. But miraculously I nabbed it and put the rarity in the bucket that Nathan trudged over to me. It was our goal one-toed amphiuma! Nathan and Noah found two and one more, respectively. It was pretty awesome to get that major lifer off our list.
One-toed amphima that I caught. Thanks to Dr. Mueller for letting me use his photo.
One-toed amphiuma habitat
A snappily-dressed (as Grandpa Richendollar would say) southern two-lined salamander
We sloshed in the same swamp for a couple of hours in search for an even more elusive species: the rusty mud salamander, to no avail. Nathan compared finding solely an amphiuma and no mud salamander to landing on the moon. I overheard him in the swamp telling Noah Mueller:
“Shoot for the moon [mud salamander], even if you miss you’ll land among stars [one-toed amphiumas]. In this case the moon isn’t so bad!”
“Is that a John F. Kennedy quote?” I jokingly yelled back.
We headed to the Lodge at Wakulla Springs for an early fancy dinner in our *slightly* dirty field herping clothes. I love doing out-of-the-ordinary stuff like that. We were waaay beyond the point of me fussing about untidy, stained clothes out in public. If you can’t beat’em, join’em.
The Lodge at Wakulla Springs where we ate dinner with Noah Muller
By day 7, Nathan was getting annoyed with his own CD. I had James Taylor songs “Never Die Young” and “Home By Another Way” on repeat too much, they are just such great tunes that I hadn’t head before until he put them on the CD! This day was sort of a malaise to me. I felt so groggy and just wanted to be home. The endless scene of cloudy pine and saw-palmetto was becoming abyssal. We went to St. Mark’s and walked around, sighting alligators, crabs, and birds aplenty.
American alligator at St. Mark’s
Moorhens feedingFiddler crabs and their tunnels carpeted the shore
One thing I thought about that day while driving was the obvious wild and natural urge there is in nature to grow, outcompete, live, and thrive. Rarely I wish to take a long dormancy break from life for awhile, but thank God I have never had to deal with considering giving up on life completely. As technology progresses by people caught up in urban problem, we have chilling rumors of a “metaverse” and of “suicide pods”. One that takes you away from reality and the other that takes away all responsibility and struggle for good. It is not natural and not the way God created us to set aside or abandon life, struggle, and responsibility. It is natural and normal to live, grow, and survive. It is a calloused individual who has numbed themselves to the desire of the human soul to survive, thrive, preserve life, and reach for the Light and prods others along the same sickly path of meaninglessness, encouraging people to wallow in a façade or to commit suicide instead of pursuing purpose. Anyway, gloomy thoughts from a gloomy day.
On December 31st we visited a beautiful park with tons of sphagnum moss in the dappled sunlit forest floor. We broke our record for the amount of new salamander species in one year with a Hillis’ dwarf salamander. We found a total of 25 new salamander species this year! Our previous record was in 2019 with a total of 24 lifer salamanders. In the same place as the Hillis’ dwarf salamander, I swooshed up muck with my boot and caught a small siren in the muck. I looked closely at its reticulated head and got my hopes way too stubbornly high and thought for awhile that it was a reticulated siren (one of my all-time top goal salamander species, they are so beautiful and unique). We were just a couple miles from where reticulated sirens had been caught, but the one I had in my hands turned out to be an Eastern lesser siren.
I love sphagnum moss!
I wish I could have a carpet of living sphagnum moss in my house
But for a moment in my hand I held a reticulated siren… turns out it is really an Eastern lesser siren. I got my hopes so high and it took me awhile to come to terms that it wasn’t a reticulated siren. We were only a couple miles from where they have been seen and in the same habitat.
Neon lichen on pine tree
Gulf coast mud salamander that I found just seconds after pawing through the first patch of sphagnum moss
Our last day of herping was at an absolutely beautiful place in Birmingham, AL. This kind of place absolutely energizes me and it was my favorite place of the entire trip (sorry Florida beach). I love the smell of moss-covered seeps running into rivers and leaf litter of mature deciduous forest. It was so nice to be back where there are winding roads and mountains. To boot, we found more colorful salamanders in Alabama than in the rest of the states which were focused on swamp and murky water-dwellers.
Me happy to be near clear rushing water in forested hills
While I snapped photos, Nathan searched for brownback salamanders in a small leaf-covered seepage that led into the river. It didn’t take long before he excitedly chanted “BROWN-BACK! BROWN-BACK! OB-VI-OUS! OB-VI-OUS!” and came running towards me with a male brownback salamander. I wish I had a video of that. He had been concerned that if he found a brownback that it would be questionable whether or not it was actually a Southern two-lined salamander. But the male he found was, like he said, obviously a brownback. I was caught up in getting the best shots I possibly could while Nathan also retrieved a massive Northern red and lifer Webster’s salamander.
Male brownback salamander
Male/female pair of brownback salamanders
Female brownback salamander
Webster’s salamander
The biggest Northern red salamander either of us has ever seen
Nothern red salamander in habitat. (The younger individuals are much redder.)
What a great way to wrap up a fun yet exhausting herping road trip! I’m so glad we ended the trip in such a great way in my favorite kind of place (even got to eat at a Cook-Out, one of our absolute favorites). We met up with some awesome folks and got to see some unique critters. We left Birmingham with 80 degree weather and arrived home to Missouri with snow on the ground.
Rest My Gaze On You
I flip out of bed
As the sun comes up each day;
Together we glee.
The mountains will stand
When past and present collide,
But friends shouldn't part.
I visit places
From my childhood so dear.
Past collides with now.
I feel a strong pang.
My childhood home has changed;
It's not what I thought.
Let the hills abide,
They will be there just the same
As they've always been.
Now you have told me
Shared spirit is truest joy.
The mountains will stand.
Let me rest my gaze
On whose eyes the sun makes glow,
For I have missed you.
This is a haiku with several stanzas. It is about the happiness of a friendship and how returning to your favorite places on occasion is easier than leaving and then trying to return the same way again to a friend or a past that you’ve been away from for too long.
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