What a great year! On this blustery December night I think back on the most significant things that happened in 2021. What a great year with so many milestones! We are so blessed and I am so grateful for my husband, Nathan.
Nathan and I managed to squeeze in a few herping trips this year. We went to Louisiana in January to trap mudpuppies, did an absolutely amazing sweep through the deep south in March, and then took a trip to Arizona for my birthday in August. I’d wanted to go to Arizona ever since I was 14 so I was in dreamland!
Another accomplishment from this year that I am proud of is that I sewed curtains for the first time and even made a fabric room divider for the upstairs loft! I also canned by myself for the first time and made elderberry jelly from elderberries I picked. That stuff will give you crazy vivid dreams, man.
This year I also did a couple things to preserve my heritage, so to speak. I converted all of my family’s old home movie tapes. And this Thanksgiving, my sisters and I made Italian tetu cookies with my grandmother’s infamous 100 year-old traditional recipe from Sicily. Those cookies are extremely sentimental to us. My Grammaw used to send them out to family every Christmas. She told me it’s “the cousin cookie” because the cousins, rather than the aunts and uncles, are the ones who love them more than any other of her cookies and put effort into making them. I had just a great time visiting with family this year, too! In March to see my new niece and celebrate the engagement of my older sister, and at Thanksgiving for a family gathering here in Missouri. My husband and I also hosted his family for the 4th of July. I love seeing family!
Italian tetu cookies
Nathan and I joined an AMAZING church that we love so much! I love helping out with the kids on Wednesday nights. They are the sweetest! Honestly, I was so nervous being around kids because I haven’t been around littles on a regular basis like… ever. They have given me so much confidence and I hope that I can impart something meaningful to them and direct them to Jesus. Through the Ozark Literacy Council, I am also helping a young girl with her reading skills on Saturday afternoons.
In May Nathan and I bought a little dream house on a couple acres in Aurora, Missouri. We both have worked extremely hard and sacrificed to save up to buy a house “the Dave Ramsey way” with no debt. There were month-long stretches of time where I worked every day in the week covering three different jobs to save up for our goals. Nathan is great at planning ahead and is so smart that he graduated college without debt. To the young folks out there reading this blog: do your best not to ever go into debt. You can live your life just fine without having to worry about a credit score. Just work hard and save, save, save. So that means a lot of sacrificing what your average American has materially or does to be entertained. I’ll probably write another blog post about delayed gratification and its role in reaching your goals. It’s crazy because we hadn’t even planned on being able to buy a house so soon, but for awhile early this year we thought I was pregnant. Nathan went on a tizzy looking for a house to buy and then continued looking even after we realized I wasn’t pregnant. That’s how we found our house. It’s so funny looking back on how it all came to fruition. I truly believe it was a miracle how it all happened, especially with the insane housing market and all.
Nathan and I just bought our first home! Here we are at the titling company.
In May we also bought an old Ford 1989 pickup truck and I learned to drive stick shift. I made it through another hot summer as a landscape crew leader (haven’t escaped yet, ha!). This was an especially great year for learning about native plants and small critters. I saw so many beloved plants and insects for the first time this year and it greatly deepened my appreciation for Missouri’s prairies and glades. I’ve been so thrilled by the plants and insects here that I hope to work towards starting a native plant nursery that specializes in host plants (plants that are essential for certain insect life stages, e.g. pawpaw trees are the only “host plant” for zebra swallowtail caterpillars). This year I was especially thankful to work at a job where I could be outdoors and not be forced by a company to wear a mask!
Now here are few goals that I’m keeping in my mind for next year. I’m going to try my hand at growing natives (specializing in host plants). The top insects I’d like to attract to my home are clearwing moths, monarch butterflies, green sweat bees, and shield bugs (they like morning glory and potato vines and they look just like water droplets on the leaves!) I’d also like to get a good photograph of a yucca moth here at my house. I saw a couple at the yuccas we have here at our house but I didn’t think to get a good photo of them because at the time I didn’t understand how interesting they are. They actively pollinate yucca plants so that their larva can grow inside the yucca seed pods. The yucca relies solely on the yucca moth for pollination, so they are mutually interdependent. I’d also like to visit all of the prairies in our county.
A few other things I’d like to do would be to go on a few more herping trips (get those out of the way before having kids), make more friends, see California family, start keeping quail in the late spring for meat and eggs, decorate the barn loft, furnish the house a little more, see an Ozark hellbender, get into tanning wild game, and start deer hunting so I can have an endless supply of deer jerky (ha!).
As I think back on a spectacular year of biological exploration here in Missouri, I recall our amazing diversity of insects and arachnids. When we first moved to this area from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, I cried because the trees here are so short and the land is mostly flat. You have to have an observant eye to find the natural gems that Missouri has, it seems. But what Missouri lacks in beautiful forests and vistas, it comes close to making up for in its beautiful glades and prairies and the critters that call it home. Here is a tour of some of the most brilliant and fascinating insects and arachnids I have seen just this year here in Missouri.
My three favorite insect/arachnid observations were ones that I didn’t get decent photos of. This fall for Nathan’s birthday we went to Ozark County, MO to swim and look for hellbender salamanders (a large fully aquatic salamander that inhabits cool, clear streams). We didn’t find any, but while I was wading in the water I caught the beautiful glimpse of a spider flying with gossamer on the gentle wind. It sank in the air to the water’s surface, paraglided a few skips like a skipping stone, then caught the wind again and lighted up towards the cliff-face. My second favorite insect/arachnid observation of the year was of a handful of hummingbird clearwing moths nectaring at a butterfly bush while I was landscaping, and also at some thistle flowers when I was taking photos at a ditch up the road from where I live. They are so beautiful and are easily my favorite insect! My third favorite insect observation was also when I was landscaping. I witnessed a migration movement of monarchs. We were working on some spec houses in a new neighborhood and my coworker and I observed about one per minute throughout midday. Not a large cluster, but it was so nice to see so many monarchs making the same pathway together towards the same final destination.
From the glades:
orange-winged grasshopper
Striped-bark scorpion, a common sight under rocks in glades
Texas brown tarantula
From the prairie:
buckeye butterfly on one of the latest-blooming flowers, aster
monarch caterpillars on their host plant, purple milkweed
Dogbane leaf beetle on their host plant, dogbane
Monarch butterfly at the Springfield Botanical Gardens Butterfly House
American bumblebee busy at false indigobush early in the year at Prairie State Park
metallic bi-colored sweat bee at one of my purple coneflowers
Snowberry clearwing at a catmint plant. These darlings love thistles and blazing star flowers. The caterpillar host plant is the snowberry bush.
Big sand tiger beetle from Ozark County, MO. I saw so many of these busy on the sand, coming in and out of their little tunnels.
Unknown dragonfly species from Schutte Prairie
Phidippus clarus jumping spider from Schutte Prairie
Ichneumon wasp found in my yard. Their larva parasitize on caterpillars.
Henry’s marsh moth caterpillar
red milkweed beetle
Zebra swallowtail at Springfield Botanical Gardens Butterfly House. Their only host plant are paw paw trees
From the forest
Marbled orbweavers are known to roam toe forest floor in the fall around pumpkin harvesting and Halloween. I have only seen two, and both were in the fall.
Nostalgia allows us to look into our past for comfort and inspiration to better the lives of those around us today. In my life, nostalgia plays a role in my striving to be a good leader and role model for the young folks. Do you ever think back and remember the good role models you had when you were a kid or teen?
I am so grateful for the people who were in my life as a child and teenager. There were so many adults in the community I grew up in who were involved in helping the kids through 4-H, Envirothon, church, and hobbies. They volunteered their time and talent to help us succeed. The fact that those adults wanted to be involved in our lives has had a lasting impact on me. Those people probably didn’t realize how significant their actions were, but they have a lasting impact on my life.
In my younger years especially, I keenly observed behaviors of those who were much more experienced in life than me. It’s hard to explain, but certain actions and tidbits of wisdom really stood out to me as a kid. I subconsciously took note of who I did and didn’t want to be like.
These are really short stories that I look back on with nostalgia that exemplify how small actions from people in my community had a significant impact on me when I was growing up.
Dr. Farris Beasley from Lincoln County, Tennessee gave a history tour at the local historical museum to our 4-H group. I don’t remember too much about it, but I do remember the reverence and spirit of the tour. It really struck a chord with me when he would explain just how much more difficult daily living was back in the olden days. He’d end with “…Back when men were men” before moving on to the next museum exhibit. A few of us kids exchanged grins at such a saying, and I think the young men may have felt like they had a lot to live up to. I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but those words really stuck with me and gave me such gratitude and respect for those who pioneered before us and had life so much more difficult.
At my first job at Walgreens, Tennessee Wildlife Officer Mr. Leith Konyndyk came in so I chatted with him for a little bit (I knew him from the times he helped with 4-H and Envorithon). He gave me words of encouragement, telling me that I could make a difference no matter where I was and that it’s all about attitude. He said that everyone has excuses, it’s just whether you choose to use them or not. You can’t let excuses hold you back from doing your best.
One more story is from an elderly man who came into Walgreens as a customer when I was working my first job as a cashier. When I had finished ringing up his items and as he was about to leave he told me “Have a good day…” and then looked at me intensely “…And have a good life!” I thanked him with a huge smile on my face and told him with confidence that I did have a good life. That just totally blew me away that he cared enough to go out of the usual hum-drum typical social norm and told me to have a good life! I thought that was so nice!
Two women, Amy Hamlin and Sue Torre, leased their horses to my sisters and me so that we would have the thrill of caring for and riding horses. Amy Hamlin even came to our house regularly to give us free riding lessons on her pony that she leased to us. We also played polocrosse one day with her sons who went on to play polocrosse internationally. Being able to ride horseback is one of my fondest memories from growing up, and it’s because they allowed us to keep their horses and taught us “horse sense”.
Another memory that stuck out to me when I was a very little kid in Sunday school was of Mrs. Katy. She was such a cheerful young lady with curly auburn hair. I remember her once telling my little Sunday School class that the first thing we should do when we wake up and look in the mirror is to smile really big. She said it sets your day off right to smile and be cheerful. She also taught us more important things about the Bible, but the thing about smiling in the mirror was something I did regularly as a kid.
These memories and many more push me forward to want to “recreate” impactful experiences for the younger generation around me. When given the opportunity, I want to try be that person to someone else.
Sow the seeds of happiness, wisdom, and encouragement for the younger generation. You may think your small actions mean nothing, but to some kid out there, your actions will help shape who they become.
Some small thing you do may stick with them for the rest of their life and they will want to try to replicate that for someone else when they are older. Remember the positive influences you’ve had in your life and try to be that person to someone else.
Who were the most positive influences to you in your childhood and teenage years? Feel free to share any nostalgic short stories in the comments.
Sloan and Amy Hamlin getting the horse ready for me to rideSteve Tucker taught me how to make a mountain fur hat out of this badger pelt I bought I showed red angus for Howard and Charlotte Bobbitt of Rock Hill Farms all over Tennessee and even a big show in KentuckyDr. Farris Beasley teaching my wildlife judging class about land managementKenneth O’Dell and Dan Owen grilling the best dang ribeyes for a 4-H fundraiserMr. Darrell Hale teaching wildlife judging at my homeIwo Gross and Kevin Messenger let me tag along in their studies at Alabama A&M with copperheads andAsian keelback snakes
My mom gave me my first journal in 2014 on my first trip to the Smoky Mountains. At the time I never really had an ongoing desire to keep a journal, so I am grateful she gave me the inspiration to get started. Since then, I have kept a journal. Each book covers the expanse of about a year or two of my life. You don’t realize until later just how glad you are that you took the time every now and then to write down things that are significant to you. I’m not one to write in a journal every day. I prefer to record the “distilled” version of my life with funny quips and sayings, goals, thought-provoking quotes and verses that shaped me in some way, lists of places I want to go in the year, difficult things that happened at work, life-shaping inspiring article clippings, influential people, things I want to see, my favorite things in life, etc.
If you don’t keep a journal, you should at least try what I call “Essence Journaling”. It distills down day-to-day life so that even though you didn’t write about every day in your life, you are taken right back to that emotion you were in at the time. Just write down the main happenings in your life and how you feel about them.
A healthy dose of introspection does a lot of good. If the commitment of keeping a daily journal is stopping you from doing it altogether, just write whenever you want to like I do. Write like no one is going to read your journals until you are dead and gone (for posterity, perhaps?), that way you can really let your guard down and get to the nitty gritty interesting stuff without worrying about making everything perfectly grammatical and organized.
After writing a paragraph or life story, I like to give it a short title so that when I am flipping back through my journals, I can choose what I want to read about. Write down funny stories from work and social interactions (believe me, you will get hearty laughs looking back on what you wrote). I love looking back in my journals every now and then to rediscover the ways I felt and how I got to the point where I am today. It’s a good compass to remind me to stay aligned with what I’ve always believed in the deepest part of my soul. I’m so glad I wrote down my favorite experiences when I was a teenager, my struggles, my emotions, and my joys.
If you have never considered writing a journal and haven’t a clue where to start, I recommend beginning by writing down a list of your favorite things in life. Here are a few of mine: family, friends, beautiful voices that sing, the ability to run, good role models, laughter, comradery, dappled horses, making biscuits, people who whistle in public without shame, little kids, kind eyes, freedom, dancing, memory, sister time, Appalachia, music, travels with Nathan, challenges, birds singing in the morning, bright kitchens, front porches, moss and ferns.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things.
As fall progresses, the sunlight casts its rays on ordinary things in a dream-like way. On a hike yesterday in Hercules Glade I snapped three photos that express some of the hike’s dreamy sunlight feel. I just love going for long hikes, and it’s been awhile since I’ve gone on a day hike in a totally quiet and peaceful place. And it did my soul such good! It brought back the carefree feeling of when I had only trivial responsibilities and I’d just take my family’s sweet black lab out for a hike with my camera and hike up and down hillsides in Tennessee. It’s nice to have time to reflect in calmness and warmth and feel a way that you haven’t in awhile.
Billows of soft reindeer lichen in the morning cedar woodland
American smoketree light and shadow
Winged sumac in fall’s light. Robert E. Talbot Conservation Area, MO
A week ago I was thinking about the neighbors that lived next-door when I was growing up in our little neighborhood in Tennessee. It hit me, those folks have been white-haired for my entire life. It hit me again: they have been elderly for my entire lifetime.
If you live that long, you will spend a 24 year-old’s life length as an elderly person. Isn’t that daunting to think of at first? When I worked my first job at Walgreens, the majority of our customers were elderly folks who came into the store for our pharmacy and medical products. There were generally two different types of elderly folks that I interacted with: the bright-eyed, clear-conscienced, well-lived elderly folks; and those who were particularly grouchy and bitter as if they never expected to get old.
How can you live life now to have peace when you are old?
When I was a live-in caregiver for Mr. Billy and Mrs. Jean, a dear 88 year-old couple in Virginia, I learned quite a lot from them about a life well-lived. One of my favorite memories with them is sitting on their front porch watching the squirrels nesting and talking about how they grew up back in the good ole’ days. Mr. Billy always said that when the Lord called him home, he would be ready because he had been so blessed. He was grateful for his life.
The couple had accomplished much in their lives and I’d say they lived the American Dream. I took care of them for about year and a half and based on what I observed of them and their life-long friends, I formed an opinion of what are the most important “things” to have when you are elderly (Lord willing). These three things in their lives repeatedly stood out to me as being important to their wellbeing, so much so that if they were missing just one of the three, I think they would be in a bad way. I could make a long list- including financial stability, hobbies, self-motivation, ability to live out their lives in their own home, and a joyful spirit- but the main overarching qualities that I observed to be of the utmost importance are #1 faith in Lord Jesus Christ, #2 close ties with friends and family, and #3 health.
These three things that I have listed are pretty obvious to some, but it’s important to know why and to understand just how valuable these things are. Because if you realize too late, it’s going to be too late period. You have to maintain your faith in God, you have to maintain your friendships and family connections, and you have to maintain your health throughout your life so that you will be rich in those things when you are older.
Faith in God is the surest foundation to build your life on. There is so much truth and wisdom to be gained from reading the Bible and then putting what you learn into action and applying it to your life. Everyone seems to be clambering for what they perceive to be true, righteous, and just in this world, yet they have no desire to pick up their Bible and read it, let alone try to live it. In my life, being a Christian has tempered my selfishness, given me a love for people, and has given me great peace and confidence.
For the elderly folks that I took care of, their faith in Jesus Christ was at the core of who they were. I truly believe their faith and peace found through Jesus Christ helped them stay mentally sound and full of peace in their old age, even when there was far less that they were able to do. When you have to rely on someone else and give up control of almost everything that pertains to daily living simply because you are no longer able to drive yourself, bathe yourself, cook for yourself, or even write at times, it is so important to have had a firm foundation of faith where your life has been built on the non-material things.
Prioritizing spiritual things now as a pattern in your daily public and inner life will give you peace and hope now and in your old age when your time on earth with the material things is dwindling.
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Colossians 3:1-4
Mrs. Jean and her friend Mrs. Irene looking at old pictures from the town they both grew up in
The second most important thing I believe was vital to the well-being of the elderly couple I helped care for was their ties to family and friends. They still had friends they had known since highschool! Not too many people can say that nowadays. Billy and Jean’s family lived close by and checked on them regularly and were very involved with their lives. Visiting with their friends, family, and local community was the highlight of their day-to-day activities.
I fondly remember one of Billy’s best friends from highschool, Edy, who we would go to see in Powhatan, VA. This man was a widower and despite his dementia, had an excellent sense of humor and extremely upbeat and generous personality. Billy and Jean would emphatically say that he had always been that way. Edy was amazed at my ordinary driving and navigating abilities and would ask me every time we visited him “Are you married or are you happy?” He could make anyone feel a burst of joy in the way he would say “You know, you’re the best thing since popcorn… Yessir!” Visiting with him absolutely brightened our day, and oh the jokes and stories he would tell!
It was important for Billy and Jean to visit with friends like that. He would say about his long-passed wife, “Where’s Mabel? Why didn’t she come with us?” When I would escort him to his home to make sure he got up the steps safely, it broke my heart when he’d open the door and call into his house “Where’s my beautiful blonde wife?” Oh how he would brag on her and her cooking. He loved showing off the well-worn wallet-sized photograph of her in her nursing cap from younger years. He renewed my hope that a man could truly adore his wife for his entire life, and it made me want to try and be that kind of wife to my husband, Nathan.
I asked Edy once if he had faith in God (I had an inkling) and he responded that he did. He brightened many peoples’ lives, and certainly had a lasting impact on mine. I just love those memories. But sticking more to the point, visiting with friends and family was probably the most important activity that Billy and Jean enjoyed and were fulfilled by. I could go on and on about the wonderful people that Billy and Jean introduced me to, but I should stick more to the point with less story-telling.
A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Proverbs 17:22
Mr. Billy feeding a lama at the Virginia Safari Park
The third most important thing to have in your later years is health. Put bluntly, how healthy you are as you age will affect how much you are able to do and how much you will be able to enjoy life in your later years.
Take care of your health: your back, your teeth, your weight, your mind, your strength, your hearing, your eating habits, your flexibility. Don’t laugh young folks! I’m telling you, your older self will thank you for it! Train your mind to be positive and joyful. When you’re old, stay interested in a variety of hobbies that will keep you active and engaged in the joy of living. Keep in mind that any bad physical or personality attributes that you have now will only amplify when you age. Some aspects of aging can’t be avoided, but you should do your best to take good care of yourself as you age.
Here are some more freebie tips on good habits to build now and before you age:
Keep a sparkle in your eye
Look for ways you can give to others
Keep busy, keep hobbies
Stay strong, work to keep good balance
Don’t neglect drinking enough water daily
Don’t be too particular, don’t hold on to material things so tightly
Stay classy and stylish
Don’t keep junk laying around for your relatives to clean up after you’re gone
Do what the doctors say
Don’t give up on yourself or your health because you are old
I hope this blog has inspired you to live better today and to build a good life so that when you look back on what you did with your life you will not long for the past, but instead will be so occupied by the gladness of your heart!
Me, Mrs. Jean, and Mr. Billy in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia doing a little bit of road trip sight-seeing.
These cooler September days are perfect for trying your hand at something new in the kitchen! I’ve made two batches of elderberry jelly because I have a huge patch of them right up the road from me near the railroad tracks. I don’t remember ever seeing elderberry patches where I grew up in Tennessee, but they are actually pretty common in the Midwest. You can find goads and goads of information about the health benefits elsewhere, but I never found a recipe for low-sugar jelly. So I tweaked a few recipes and tried my hand at making elderberry jelly with Sure-Jell’s Less Sugar or No Sugar Needed pectin packs and both batches turned out great! My husband, friends, and I all have had vivid dreams at night after eating some of the jelly. Apparently this is a very well-known side-effect of elderberry and I found it quite interesting!
This recipe makes 4 pint-sized (16 oz.) jars. If you want to make enough for friends to sample, use smaller jars.
Pick two brown grocery paper bags’ worth of ripe elderberry heads. This will be enough to fill 4 quart bags once the berries are de-stemmed. You can tell that they are ripe when the berry heads are drooping from their weight and there are little to no green berries in the head. Tips for de-stemming the elderberries: watch a movie while you do it, because it takes about a two hours to properly de-stem. Make sure you don’t include too many green elderberry berries. De-stem using your fingers or using a long fork. Try not to include to many pieces of stem.
Elderberry flowerheads can be seen late spring through fall. You can often see ripe elderberries next to flowerheads still in the early fall. The heads don’t all ripen at the same time so it really takes a large patch to make anything out of them.Unripe elderberry headElderberry heads are ready to be snipped once they are drooping in late summer and early fall. Cut the heads with scissors directly into your brown paper grocery bag.
Materials you will need:
Two large stock pots
One medium pot to strain juice into
Strainer
Large spoon
4 pint jars or 8 half-pint jars with respective lids
Jar lifter
Wire jar rack to lower jars into stock pot
Wide-mouth funnel
Whisk
If you don’t have any of these materials, ask a friend to see if they will let you borrow their canning supplies over the weekend!
Ingredients:
4 quart bags of de-stemmed elderberries
2 boxes of Sure-Jell Premium Fruit Pectin For Low or No Sugar Recipies 1.75 oz.
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 large lemons)
3 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons salted butter
Steam all tools, pots, and equipment initially to make sure everything is sterilized. Rinse elderberries and add to a large pot along with 1 1/2 cups of water to prevent berries from burning. Let simmer for 15 minutes, mashing intermittently. The juice will look a little brown at first, but the juice will turn a beautiful purple as it heats further.
In the meantime, boil your empty jars and lids with at least a couple inches of water over the tops to sterilize. Set empty hot jars and lids aside, but keep the water hot because you will be boiling the full jars of jelly.
Drain elderberries in whatever method you decide is best for you. Some people strain overnight in a muslin cloth back with stand, but I prefer a much faster method. I mash the juice through a large metal strainer first, then strain out any seeds through a fine metal strainer. In the end you should have 7 3/4 cups of juice. If you need to, add a little water to bring it up to that measurement.
Bring elderberry juice to a gentle boil then add sugar, lemon juice, butter, and pectin. Make sure you whisk the juice mixture because the pectin may clump at the bottom of your pot (I had this happen and I didn’t realize until I was filling my last jar! I poured the mixture back into the pot, boiled 4 new jars, and whisked the mixture to make sure it was smooth). Skim all of the foam off the top of the pot before funneling jelly mixture into your jars. Leave 1/4 inch headspace at the top of the jars to allow for proper sealing. Wipe the rims of the jars and screw the lids on tight. Lower jars into boiling pot of water, making sure the water covers the tops at least 2 inches. Boil for five minutes and remove jars to cool and set on a wire rack until morning.
If your jars are properly sealed, they will have no “play” in the top cap. Store in a dark place and put your first jar in the fridge! The jelly tastes great on biscuits, bagels, and toast!
Fresh elderberries can be kept in the fridge for about a week before using. But I wouldn’t risk going past that timeframe before preserving.Elderberries before simmering. A couple green berries here and there are ok but not preferable.Elderberries during simmering and mashing. The juice becomes bright purple as simmering progresses.My quick method of straining. Strain it once more through a fine-mesh strainer to rid of all seeds. “Mix it all together in a sauce that’s fit for kings”“Calloo Calley we’ll eat today like cabbages and kings!”
Arizona has been in my mind ever since I was little and learned about all of the cool reptiles that live there. I would check out dozens of books from the library to admire the landscape and all of the cool reptiles and amphibians that live there. This year Nathan secretly planned a 4-day herping trip out west during monsoon season for my 24th birthday. The secret almost slipped! Nathan hid the hand-written itinerary in the thickest, most boring economics book on our bookshelves. Well, I about gave him a heart attack (he kept a good poker-face, though) when he saw that I had the same book out to sit on while sewing curtains! And that was the first time I started sewing in our marriage! Crazy! But I never saw the itinerary and it never slipped out of the book, much to his relief. Nathan also put together a CD of favorite western songs featuring Marty Robbins and Dean Brody for the trip and hid it behind some books.
Disney vacation-planners got nothin’ on Nathan! He has always been very meticulous about planning an itinerary for any herping trip to maximize the amount of new species we can see in one trip. This is an especially useful skill because it is our goal to see every species of salamander in the United States. Most of our trips are salamander-focused, but Nathan planned this trip a little differently because he knows that, overall, I’m more fond of reptiles than amphibians.
Me and Nathan in Oklahoma before road cruising for western massasauga rattlesnakes
snow-on-the-mountain spurge
The first day heading west, we stopped at my childhood favorite sub shop, Blimpie, to get some subs for the road and head on to our first road-cruising spot in western Oklahoma. We saw a speckled kingsnake, DOR (dead-on-road) massasauga rattlesnake, and a woodhouse’s toad.
What the surrounding landscape lacked in tall trees and greenery, it made up for in vibrant color, contrast, and texture of the vegetation and soil color. I was in awe! When it was dark out, we were out in the middle of nowhere road cruising for snakes when a huge aircraft flying low came up straight behind us and lifted off higher into the air. I think they just did that to get a good startle out of us. Whew!
Nathan drove through the night to get to the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico in the morning to see the only salamander of the trip: an endemic Sacramento Mountain salamander.
Sacramento Mountain Salamander, one of the last members of the genus Aneides that we have left to see.
The “sky island” of the Sacramento Mountains is a stark contrast to the lower elevation’s harsh landscape scattered with yuccas and ocotillo cactus everywhere. It was about 72 degrees down in the desert morning and a chilly 52 degrees once we reached the mountain habitat of the salamander. There were hummingbirds buzzing all around and elk tracks imprinted in soft trail.
Scarlet trumpet
When we reached our AirBNB in Animas, New Mexico, we unloaded our things from the car and saw a gopher snake taking rest in the shade of the building. This place was an oasis out in the middle of nowhere. We took a mid-day nap to catch up on sleep before meeting up with Rob and Nicholas (Smetlogik on Youtube) at the Portal Cafe.
I’ve bantered back and forth with Smetlogik for about a decade or so on Youtube and online forums- back in the good ole’ days of the Herping With Dylan Forum (for the select few of you herpers who ever participated in that now bygone herping forum). It was so great to finally meet the two of them! They are super hard-core herpers and have a successful comedic and educational YouTube Channel sharing their herping adventures with the world. At the cafe they bought us dinner and we ate while swapping stories and bantering on about the correct pronunciation of “in situ“. Rob made a hilarious and informative video on the topic that you can see here.
Me, Nathan, Rob, and Nicholas all excited as can be to do some herping!
Rob strategized that if we drive in separate vehicles, we’d be able to cover more ground. When it was past dusk, the roads were busy with many other herpers from out-of-state, namely California, who also came to this hotspot in peak season for the iconic reptiles that would be out that night. We saw several western diamondbacks, mojave rattlesnakes, couch’s spadefoot toads, one desert kingsnake, green ratsnake, and gophersnake that night. Even though the roads were busy with other herp enthusiasts, it was really neat being in a collective effort to see and share sightings.
We turned in at about midnight, still early for road cruising, but we were super tired from the overnight drive the previous night. Our AirBNB was in a location known for some of the darkest skies in the U.S. so that was really special.
Juvenile desert kingsnakeA green ratsnake that I quickly photographed. Our new friends Jeff and Dave found this one on the road and were taking their own photos of it.Couch’s spadefoot- the only animal in the universe that you can reasonably say while road-cruising “Can’t be a toad, it’s too fat and round!”
The next day we ate a quick breakfast of cereal that I had brought and then headed out again in the morning to poke around a little before meeting up with Rob and Nicholas again to try our hand at finding the rock rattlesnake, my top goal species besides the gila monster lizard. They come out in the late morning once the sun reaches into the canyon to bask. Nathan spotted a mandrean alligator lizard which I caught and photographed. Didn’t expect that cool find!
A beautiful blue fungus beetle found out crawling in the scrubby canyon forestNathan in the canyon stream before meeting up with Rob and Nicholas for the morning
Mandrean alligator lizard that Nathan found
It wasn’t too much later that Nathan found a banded rock rattlesnake! Our group had split up to cover more ground and so I had to sprint a good way across cobblestones in my gaiters as fast as I could to make sure I could get a glimpse of it before it potentially slithered away. Thankfully, it was still visible when I reached Nathan. I cannot explain just how beautiful and vibrant the pattern of that snake was. I couldn’t unlock my eyes from such a beautiful snake as that one. The camouflage was just spectacular because it was the exact colors as the surrounding rocks, lichens, and moss. The contrast of the mint green against the dark moss-green of the bands was absolutely astounding, not to mention the pink blushing coming up the side of its body. This was the prettiest reptile I had ever seen in the wild. It had that sort of “freshly-shed” vibrancy to it. I hate saying this cliché term and I never have except for this moment in time- the photos just don’t do it justice.
The best find of the trip, a banded rock rattlesnake
We hiked and excitedly talked for a couple more hours in search of more banded rock rattlesnakes, but the one pictured above ended up being our one and only for the trip. We crossed paths with a group of birders who loudly told us to shush. Evidently we were disrupting good birding. In addition to the grouchy birder group, we also met a large college group from Mississippi who we ran into the previous night on the road when they were stopped for a couch’s spadefoot. We talked a little and Rob put a plug-in for his Youtube Channel in case any of the kids were interested. Our last naturalist friend that we met on the trail was Scott, a sinewy, salt-and-pepper haired man from Tuscan who described to me what gorgeous and vibrant critters the blacktail rattlesnakes are with their mustard-yellow color.
We made it back to the trailhead and said goodbye to Rob and Nicholas and waited for dusk to start road cruising. We hope to introduce them to our stomping grounds and a totally different habitat, the Appalachian Mountains, to look for salamanders with them.
Me next to a huge agave that hummingbirds were sipping from that morning
That night we road cruised a beautiful Northern blacktail rattler in the canyon before the roads got too cool then hit the roads that received more sunlight during the day. This was the best night of road cruising we’ve ever had. In the east it is much harder to road cruise for snakes with that amount of success. It seemed like every couple of minutes we were seeing at least something!
Throughout the day Nathan kept track of where any monsoon was moving and decided we should hit the highway heading south to see some critters that the monsoon brought out. When it was fully dark we road-cruised several HUGE Sonoran desert toads, so many western diamondbacks that I coined the phrase “Diamond Dozen”, mojave rattlers, gopher snakes, a desert kingsnake, couch’s spadefoot toads, and a DOR Mexican hognose snake. There were also plenty of desert mice here and there that were crossing the roads which was a good sign to us that there was plenty of food out for our target species.
Northern blacktail rattlesnake found in the canyon at twilight. I am told that daytime is a much better time to see their mustard-yellow vibrancy.
Sonoran desert toad (also known as Colorado river toads further north in their range)
Me excited to finally see a Sonoran desert toad
What a fun night of road cruising on my birthday! As we were driving up to our Dark Sky AirBNB, we both saw a green fireball meteor!
On our way into the next morning we saw a young mountain lion and some javelina hogs. We did a little bit of hiking further up the canyon and ran into one of our new friends, Dave, who showed us a “bitchin'” spot for rock rattlesnakes where he had seen them earlier. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to turn up any more. We road cruised for horned lizards outside of the canyon. We teamed up with a witty herper named Will to cover more ground. He revealed his plan to us to leave his dozen or so cleverly painted fake snakes made of string on the road to fool other herpers that night.
Together we teamed up and road cruised a male and female desert box turtle, a Mexican spadefoot toad, and a black-necked gartersnake. It was time to say goodbye to Arizona and head to our AirBNB in rural New Mexico to settle in before another night of road cruising.
Male desert box turtle found on a gravel road outside the canyon in Arizona
After settling in at our AirBNB and eating dinner at an A&W for my first time, we hit the road at twilight to try and find 6 of our target snakes. The landscape was extremely flat and boring except for the mountains in the far distance. It took us about an hour and a half before we saw anything whatsoever and at times it felt like we were driving in an abyss because the landscape was so vast that it didn’t really feel like we were covering much distance.
When you’re road cruising and desperate for something to finally be on the road, you have to remember to blink! We pulled up a podcast on our phone to listen to and keep our brains occupied. Our first find of the night was a night snake, followed closely thereafter by a prairie rattler! It wasn’t long until we were really cookin’ with Martha! In total we found 5 of the 6 goal species that we were after. We think that because it had gotten so hot that day, the snakes came out later than usual when the roads and temperatures finally cooled down in the low 80’s/ high 70’s.
Beautiful little prairie rattlesnake
Hooknose snakes have a bizarre way of avoiding predators called “cloacal popping”- they literally fart to scare predators away.
glossy snake
nightsnake
The hot dog of that night’s road cruising- a beautiful longnose snake!
The next morning we unsuccessfully tried our hand at longnosed leopard lizards and horned lizards, but we did see a monsterous western diamondback basking in the morning light! I was thrilled to get some good photos because the only other shots I had of the species was of them on the road at night, not the best picture material.
A western diamondback rattlesnake in the morning light in New Mexico
Apache Plume shrub from New Mexico looks like Missouri’s prairie smoke perennial plant
Cool town name in New Mexico heading home (there was another town further north named Elephant Butte)
Driving through the vast expanse of desert across states reminds me what a fortunate time we live in where we can travel great distances safely, quickly, and at very little cost. Isn’t that such a testament to the great country and time we live in? I am so grateful for the life we live and I want to be a part of preserving this American way of life for the next generations to enjoy too. We shouldn’t take our freedoms for granted; it is hard-fought for but can slip through our hands if we squander our privileges and blessings and do nothing to preserve this freedom for the next generations.
Nathan and I were sure fortunate to see some awesome plants and critters in our time out west! We even got to meet some awesome herpers and naturalists on our trip. When we got back home to Missouri, it didn’t take Nathan long to start scheming our next Arizona trip!
A few weeks ago a ditch along the road to our house was brush-hogged, causing a stand of purple milkweed to spring up. I was excited enough just to see the blooms! But every evening for the past week or so, Nathan and I have walked to go see what kind of action is happening at the blooms. I am so amazed at how many beautiful and unique insects are all brought together just by ONE PLANT! These unique and beautifully designed insects just make me so amazed at our Creator!
There are many things about God that I don’t understand, but my faith is especially strengthened when I see harmony and design found in God’s creation with specialist and interdependent species that are rely specifically on the other for the continuation of their life cycle.
Monarch caterpillars fatten quickly on their milkweed diet.
Monarch butterflies somehow can identify the specific kind of plant that will nourish their offspring and provide the toxins needed for the caterpillars for their chemical defense. The toxins (cardiac glycosides) the caterpillar sequesters are carried into adulthood and gradually wear off in the adult butterfly. It is amazing that God made them with the ability to go through a complete metamorphosis- two totally different lifestyles- and then on top of that they have the ability to identify the specific plants they should lay their eggs on!
Many butterflies and moths rely on a single plant species to lay their eggs. Some local example are monarch= milkweed, zebra swallowtail= pawpaw trees, catalpa sphinx moth= catalpa trees, rattlesnake master borer= rattlesnake master, gulf fritillary butterfly= passion flowers, yucca moth= yuccas. Many plants rely on a select few birds or insects to pollinate it.
Yuccas are pollinated exclusively by yucca moths as they lay their eggs in the yucca flower (they are mutually obligate), bottle gentian are pollinated primarily by bumblebees that are strong enough to open the blooms, ghost orchids are known only to be pollinated by giant sphinx moths that have long enough proboscises to reach the pollen packets, prairie-fringed orchids are known only to be pollinated by nocturnal hawkmoths, red monkey flowers are pollinated by hummingbirds’ foreheads as they come for nectar, and purple monkey flowers are mainly pollinated by yellow-faced bumblebees.
Milkweed weevils (Odontocorynus umbellae) busily getting nectar from this purple milkweed bloom.
These weevils were so funny because when they saw me close by, many of them would purposely fall off of the bloom. Even if they fell onto an underlying milkweed leaf, they would crawl to the edge and fall all the way to the ground. They are capable of flying, but the quickest way for them to avoid predation I guess is to fall to the ground!
cobalt blue milkweed beetle (I think)
Dogbane leaf beetle (Chrysochus auratus) on dogbane
These beetles were only seen on one afternoon. Their metallic color is just outstanding!
Mating pair of dogbane leaf beetles on dogbane
Cool video to learn more about this beetle!
Red milkweed beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmu)
Red milkweed beetles are quite a charismatic member of the longhorn beetle family. They tend to move around the milkweed plant to get out of sight. Their larva feed on milkweed roots and overwinter underground before emerging and pupating and eventually becoming adults in the spring. Like monarch caterpillars, these beetles have warning colors (aposematic coloration) to ward off predators.
sulphur butterfly
Large milkweed beetle
This one native plant species brings in so much interesting life! This is part of why I love visiting native habitats and searching for critters that can be found there. It’s just another reason why I think it is so much better to artfully landscape with select native plants and try to provide for the requirements of the wildlife you’d like to see. Better to have a lively landscape than a stagnant, primarily non-native landscape that that is useless to the life cycle of many beneficial insects and wildlife. I can’t wait to collect the seeds in the fall and plant them on our property!
To learn more about managing for insects, I highly recommend reading Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide to Conserving North American Bees and Butterflies and Their Habitat.
The Missouri Prairie Foundation has a great Youtube channel called “Missouri Prairie” where you can learn a lot about managing your property, large or small, for wildlife.
Some Christians would have you think that if you don’t read Genesis 1 as a six-day creation event, then you can’t really take the rest of the Bible’s overarching principles and truth seriously. I’m referring to Ken Ham (founder of Answers in Genesis, Creation Museum, The Ark Encounter) and his ideological followers. In Genesis particularly, they leave no room to bring in context. Supposedly, if you don’t believe in a six-day creation, then you’re bound to warp and interpret the rest of the Bible according to how you want it to mean. Supposedly, you have to believe a six-day creation because any other interpretation would be reasoning with a flawed mind (flawed because of sin).
Well, my question to them would be: since we are imperfect and have flawed minds, how are they so confident that they have the correct interpretation of Genesis 1? But it’s all or nothing. And when given that sort of “all or nothing” choice, many people throw the baby out with the bathwater and default to the evidence they can see which strongly indicates that the universe and earth could be much older than what six-day creationists claim it to be, becoming atheists or agnostics because they think an old earth is not compatible with Christianity.
The Bible says that you have to trust in Him to receive Salvation, it doesn’t say that to receive salvation you have to take interpret Genesis as supporting young earth creationism. The early chapters in Genesis seem to simplify God’s creating, while making it so beautifully concise! Don’t you think the act of God creating is a little too complicated not to simplify?
I grew up believing in a literal six-day creation and have attended and watched many lectures that promote both ideas. Now I believe there is good evidence that the earth is very old, but that however the universe came into existence, God was the one doing the creating. I believe that God created organisms within their own “kinds” with great genetic diversity and adaptability when he initially created each one, whatever timescale that was.
My thoughts regarding literal interpretation of a six-day creation changed when I watched the Great Courses lecture series called “Nature of Earth: Introduction to Geology”. This gave me a basic understanding of a few things that indicate a very old earth such as the underwater chain of volcanoes off of Hawaii; how the seafloor spreads and is “recycled” causing volcanoes and earthquakes; symmetrical, alternating magnetic stripes on the mid-Atlantic ridge; and magnetic poles flipping and shown in magnetic lava layers.
The bigger question: did everything come from an intelligent Creator?
I think it is detrimental to teach that you have to believe in the literal six-day creation idea in order to be a true believer. God gives wisdom freely to those who ask for it. Faith in God is not based on how old you think the earth is, plain and simple. All of the efforts trying to convince people the importance of a six-day creation would be much better spent reaching the world for Christ and providing for those in need, instead of intellectually jousting with each other over such trivial matters while simultaneously driving away some Christians and onlookers. So let’s put aside the age of the universe for a little while and focus on the more important issue.
I think that the bigger issue is whether or not you believe in God and that he created everything. It will never be possible to know all the exact details of how the universe was brought into existence. The more relevant question is if there was an intelligent mind doing the creating, regardless of whether or not that was over a long period of time (even still continuing) or just a few days.
The fine-tuning of how creatures survive and reproduce is so outstanding that it must have required the forethought and genius of a mind outside of the universe. Biology is so complex, yet it appears so simple from the surface! It’s one thing to invent/create something complex, but it’s even more outstanding to make it appear simple and streamlined.
How the universe came about is not a scientific question
Atheist scientists say that Christian scientists have no grounds for bringing God into the equation because there is no way to prove His existence and it is purely a supernatural hypothesis, therefore it is unscientific. And Christians say that atheist scientists have no grounds for closing off the potential for the existence of God because they are ruling out a major possibility, which is also unscientific. Supposedly, opening the door in the scientific community to the possibility of a creator would diminish scientific inquiry and slow discoveries because there would always be the default answer “God created” and lessen curiosity. This is ridiculous.
Modern science has its roots in Judeo-Christian curiosity. Instead of the ancient philosophizing about what the world is (armchair scientism, so to speak), people who believed in God searched for concrete answers to how things work. The scientific method, intellectual process, and cross-checking came from a specific worldview that humans have a flawed mind, yet were created in the image of God. Therefore, they (Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Mendel, Boyle, Huygens) expected to find and understand intelligible order in universal laws.
How came the Bodies of Animals to be contrived with so much Art, and for what ends were their several Parts? Was the Eye contrived without Skill in Opticks, and the Ear without Knowledge of Sounds? … And these things being rightly dispatch’d, does it not appear from Phaenomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, and omnipresent?”
Issac Newton, Opticks p. 369-370
When we get to the bottom of each argument of materialistic naturalism (no God involved) vs. intelligent design (God is involved), matter and intelligence had to come from somewhere. In the end we are all brought to a non-scientific question beyond the realm of provable science: is there a God or not who brought everything into existence.
Mind comes from somewhere science can’t explain
Scientists use their mind to produce formulas and test theories. But atheist scientists seldom recognize that their mind and thought comes from somewhere beyond what anyone can quantify and understand! If everything is meaningless and directed by chance and happenstance, then how do they come to the conclusion that their mind, thoughts, and reasoning have meaning and purpose? Honestly, how can someone think they have something worthwhile to say if at the same time they think that everything- including their own thoughts- came about by random chance and flukes?
“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse…”
Romans 1:20, NKJV
I will sum up all of this with a great quote from a very influential book of my teenage years that I re-discovered long after writing this.
If one believes that God created the world in six days, or if one believes he created the world in a billion years, or if one believes, as I do, that the process of creation is still going on and is an everlasting process, does it change one bit the fact that God is doing the creating? Does it change one bit the part that God has in it and the part that man has in it? Does it bring us any closer to being able to live without him?
From Wild Rivers and Mountain Trails by Don Ian Smith
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