that rare plant...

The Terlingua Creek Cat's Eye plants are starting to bloom.  

66,77 50,0,B

cryptantha crassipes under glass...

Day long visit from a professor and 2 grad students from the University of Idaho here to study the Terlingua Creek Cat's Eye plants.  It was kind of like an episode of CSI Texas.  Dr. Mark Schwarzländer and Masters degree student Karuna Nepal and PhD student Jessica Fung were here to extract volatiles from the leaves and flowers of some select plants.  They did this by isolating plant parts with little bags and setting up pumps that would pull air through them to be collected in tiny chambers.  Each collection lasted 6 hours.  They have to FedEx the samples to their lab tomorrow to be deep frozen and run through a GC-MS instrument (gas chromatography - mass spectrometry) to reveal the organic compounds in the plants.  Chupa helped.  66,76,41,0,B

confused cryptantha...

Another part of my daily morning walk ritual is a flower count.  I am up to 22 different flowers I have spotted on my morning walkabout.  Some I have never noticed before but the most interesting I have spotted are a very few Terlingua Creek Cat's-eye plants that have decided to shoot up an inflorescence way off schedule.  Normally, they only bloom once per year in early March.  81,85,62,0,B

La Piccola Maria

One of 4 seeds that Maria the plant lady gave me from the 2011 bloom of the Cat's Eye plants is taking shape.  Pole beans planted last Sunday.

Administering low doses of iron and sulfur to the blueberry bush.  Keeping an eye on this view to monitor the situation.

Fed the pitcher plant today...some organic fertilizer.  Time for another salad tomorrow.  90,109,71,0,W,0

the nursery...

Got a tour this morning of the Sul Ross greenhouse from Maria the botanist.  My first look at all the Cat's Eye plants she has started from seeds collected last year at The Field Lab.  They are definitely living the easy life under controlled conditions.  Kinda feel like I should be handing out cigars.

Ran a slew of errands including parts for the west greenhouse door, a 16lb. five foot long pry bar (called a San Angelo bar - but I call it a Terlingua tooth pic), and a foot long 1" masonry bit to speed up the hole excavation even more.   BTW....we got a light sprinkle last night for about 10 minutes that was only enough to connect the dots on the ground.  95,101,72,0,B

crypantha crassipes

My friends Maria and Will came out today to check on my endangered plant - Terlingua Creek Cat's Eye.  We have all been worried that the record freeze and no rain since last October would adversely effect them.  All my plants show signs of frost damage.  While following the botanists around on their plant survey, I spotted the first two blooms coming off one of the biggest plants on my property.  Spotted several other bloom stalks starting on other plants so looks like the species will survive another year.  Check out Maria's article on page two for some background on the plant.  http://texas.sierraclub.org/bigbend/Issue134.pdf

Nice cool day so while not looking for flowers, I was chipping away at the boulder in my back yard.  Made excellent progress getting out the last of the big bits.  Now I just gotta figure out where to put all the debris so I don't have to move it more than once.  57,66,31,0,C 

Cryptantha Crassipes blooming...

58,86,48, .04"

SUNDAY

Just another perfect weather day in paradise....after the fog burned off that is. My friend Maria from Sul Ross came out this morning to count more of the rare plants (Terlingua Creek Cat's Eye) growing at the Field Lab. She is up to 901 as of today. Maria was marking areas where she has already counted with little orange flags.

Finished off all the high welding by 6PM today. I can do the rest from the tops of the containers now. About 50 more flanges to go. I am also welding 3" x 5" plates over the 17 butt welds that don't line up over a truss. Such a nice day I took a 2 hour break to soak in the sun between shifts. 59,82,41,0

Late Update: I didn't watch the Superbowl but one of my facebook friends posted a link to this Budweiser commercial ...I like it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgFHJRyz_MA

Cryptantha Crassipes!

Just a putter day today (and sorry BillyBob http://billybobsplace.blogspot.com/ , no golf was involved) ...puddered around looking for what might be the easiest thing to accomplish quickly today. Found it with my new window score. Only took about a hour to remove the 3 sections of prime glass from the window frame. Now I have a new piece for my solar hot water heater manifold and the main ingredient for 2 new solar ovens. Needed one more task before really taking the day off, so I removed the roll cage from the go kart. Thought it needed a sportier look. Cleaned the spark plug and took it on a little 3 mile trip - no problems. It doesn't go fast enough to roll over on the flats and I don't go off-roadin' with it so I reckon it's ok to take the top off. If I am ever wrong about this - boy, I bet it sure is gonna hurt...

Welcomed some new visitors that showed up on the doorstep of the Field Lab this morning. A couple of botanist ladies looking for a plant specific to my landscape. http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/terlingu/ We took a walk and they showed me what they were looking for within minutes. I responded with, "These plants are everywhere out here!" They took some measurements and then I showed them one I knew of by the greenhouse. Funny thing was, I named it Kevin on the spot and one of the women gently stroked some leaves and said, "Hi, Kevin." I was told that they usually bloom in April so I went back to the April file of my photos and sure enough, here is Kevin when he was in-bloom on April 12, 2009. I think I need a grant to study them...a really BIG grant. 89,102,59,0