A Fowl Forecast

Small's Green Team was in a fowl mood at yesterday's meeting.

Staff chicken sponsor and campus eggspert, Mrs. Dunaway

agreed to accept delivery of 5 hens from aspiring Eagle Scout Tanner Frisby in the very near future. Ms. Zertuche suggested holding a contest to name the chickens.

Information about our chicken yard will be broadcast over Cougars News.

I love scout projects. They harken back to barnraisings.

They involve a smaller community, but all the important elements are there. Family and friends working cooperatively as a service to others. Beyond that, it is a chance to watch a young adult develop design, construction, and managerial skills.

Photos courtesy of the Frisby Family.

It's been a busy butterfly week. We saw a few dozen Monarchs and managed to net 15 tagging 14 of those. The most sightings and captures were just ahead of Wednesday's cold front. Student with multiple catches were Joe(4), Jared(2) and Deanna(2). Eleven of the 14 were female.

Students also netted damselflies, honeybees, and several butterfly species: queens, various skippers, Variegated and Gulf frittilaries, tiger and pipevine swallowtails, and sulphurs.

We also caught crickets and geckos to feed our class rat snake and tarantula.

Many of the butterflies showed evidence of bird bites on their wings.

Tree Keys, Fall Leaves, and Blossoms Abound

Autumn is beginning to nudge our summer weather southward.
Many of our perennials on campus are in a blooming frenzy.

Deanna grabbed the camera and captured some beauties.

Yellow bells (Tecoma stans)

Rock Rose (Pavonia lasiopetala Scheele)

Apace plume (Fallugia paradoxa)

Can you communicate with a tree?

Students in my Taste of Science classes have been learning how to get a tree to reveal its name.

Students are learning to read information present on its leaves.

By observing characteristics of the leaves, students learn to process this information using a dichotomous key.

Ruby records her observations.

AJ is working along with Ruby and Ethan, below, using an intermediate process call a KISS (Keep It Simple Students) Key.

In the background is a class favorite, the toothache tree

(Zanthoxylum hirsutum Buckleyii.)

Already changing into fall colors in our gardens are red oak, prairie flameleaf sumac, bigtooth maple and Texas ash.

So, why exactly do leaves change colors in the fall?

Turns out those colors were there all along. For an excellent explanation of the process, see Margeret Bamberger's explanation click here.

In Pursuit of Monarchs

For the past two weeks, my sixth grade Native Plants and Animals of Texas students have been researching monarch butterflies. Today was the day to get out the nets and and go hunting.

The pursuit begins...

Are you sure there are butterflies around here?

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Enthusiasm dwindles.

I saw something!

Emily nets the first one and becomes the envy of the class.

Click the photo, and you can get a good view of her catch.

The tags are actually round stickers that you affix to the underside of the hindwing.

Before releasing it, we have to record its gender on our tally sheet.

Emily will check the topside of the hindwing for two black spots.

Yep, two spots. She caught a male.

Emily applies the tag.

Now the hunt intensifies.

We have been participating in Monarch Watch for seven years now.

Five years ago we were designated as an official Monarch Waystation.

The data we collect helps scientists track migration patterns of the butterflies as they head to their overwintering sites in central Mexico.

This was field biology at its "funnest."

I almost feel guilty for getting paid.

Nature was doing most of the teaching.

More Fall Plant Sale Info

Here are the latest additions to our plant offerings for Saturday:

4 inch pots

Assorted sedums

MX feathergrass

Coreopsis (tickseed)

Assorted salvias

Missouri violet

1 gallon

Rock rose pavonia

Trailing winecup

Mealy Blue sage

Fall Aster

Flame acanthus

Turk's cap

Tropical milkweed

Esperanza

Diamanita

Lantana (gold & trailing purple)

Rosemary

Dwarf wax myrtle

Rock penstemon

Cedar sage

Flameleaf sumac

MX feathergrass

Velvetleaf mimosa

Prairie fleabane

Standing calylophus

Moss Verbena

Verbena rigida

Crossvine

Blackfoot daisy

Skeletonleaf goldeneye

Chocolate daisy

Lindheimer muhly

Deer muhly

Pine Muhly

Gulfcaost muhly

Blanco crabapple

3 gallon

Apache plume

Thornless Retama

5 gallon

Bigtooth maple

Elbowbush

Anacacho Orchid

MX buckeye

TX ebony

We will also be featuring planter boxes, arbor, and children's picnic tables made on campus by Mr. Scott's students.

Fall Plant Sale Plant List

Here is a preliminary list of the plants we'll be offering for sale this Saturday:

One gallon

TX Mountain Laurel

Spiderwort

Cedar Elm

Aloe Vera

Pinyon Pine

Cenizo

Shrubby Bush Sage

White Mistflower

Gregg's Mistflower

Chili Pequin

Catalpa

Evergreen Sumac

American Beautyberry

Lantana Horrida

Sabal Minor

Anacacho Orchid tree

Eve's Necklace

Mexican Plum

Monterey Oak

Lacey Oak

Desert Willow

Escarpment Cherry

Goldenball Leadtree

Two Gallon and Larger

Aloe Vera

Century Plant

Possumhaw

Red Yucca

Sotol

Nolina Texana

Building a Tree out of Students and Other Educational Excitement

This crew means business. Weeds beware!

Could you name the layers of a tree?

Maybe if you spent time as a tree you would never forget them.

Start with the heartwood to provide strength and structure.

Add a taproot (optional) and lateral roots for support, water, and nutrients.

Add sapwood (xylem) to move water and nutrients to the leaves and cambium to generate new cells.

Then you'll need the phloem (inner bark) to transport food produced in leaves.

Cut into this layer with a string trimmer, and you will most likely kill your tree.

And finally, add the outer bark for protection.

Cool snake encounter- while working near the silo stairs flower bed, Allie saw a snake and alerted me (okay, she screamed like a girl). This snake was tenacious and almost got away.

We consulted two Texas snake guides and checked the Internet. Our best guess is that it is an eastern blacknecked garter (Thamnophis cyrtopsis). If you positively know otherwise, please leave a comment on this blog.

After spending a couple of days in our classroom snake enclosure, we released him.

Boy, was he feisty!

We are still cleaning up the gardens around campus. Two crews maintainn Mrs. Fillman's Memorial Garden. It is divided into four sectios: evergreen, desert, wildflower, and purple (her favorite color).

Most of the purple bed is in full bloom. Here is a native variety of morning glory with a very large bloom. Most of the plants in this section were donated by the folks at Medina Garden Nursery (see previous blog). Also blooming prairie verbena ( Glandularia bipinnatifida) and black dalea (Dalea frutescens).

This crew is removing a giant pampas grass. It's starting to crowd out some neighboring natives.

This'll keep 'em busy for a while.