So Far, So Dry

Even as the blooms from March are replaced with fruits and seeds for the next generation, April brings new blossoms like the Zexmenia, Straggler Daisy, Blackfoot Daisy, Bur Clover, Prairie Fleabane, Blue Mistflower and Blue-Curls. Then May comes along with its clusters of confusing composites - from the striking Black-Eyed Susans, Firewheels, Mexican Hats, and Coreopses, to the more delicate Slender-Leaf Hymenoxys and Greenthread.

Now it's June. Heart-Leaf Skullcaps and Obedient Plants add a soft touch of violet deep in the canyon, as the dramatic Standing Cypresses flash their flaming spikes of flowers and the Silver Nightshades soften the landscape of the grassy fields above.  


Standing Cypress flowers near the learning center.

Summer is just around the corner. Rain has been sporadic, at best. An inch falls one night, a quarter inch drizzles another. It's June 10, 2008, and we've received 8.21 inches of rain at Westcave since the first of the year. Last year by this time we had 22.93 inches of rain. The last time we had accumulated less than 9 inches of rain by this date was in 2002, with only 6.19 inches precipitation by this time.


Silver-Leaf Nightshade softens the look of the landscape.

As they surely have done for ages, the falls still splash and the springs still flow through our canyon, feeding the perennial Heinz Branch creek as it wends its way to the Pedernales River. The towering Bald Cypress trees stand here like living monuments, silent witnesses of centuries. The travertine is older still, and the ocean fossils in the wall are evidence of even more ancient days. How old is the Equisetum: the slender, silicon-rich 'horsetail' plant growing along the springs? What about the Palmetto Palm? How long have ferns been around? Did dinosaurs nibble at them?


The digital age helps us envision the old beside the new.

Back in the present tense; David reports seeing the wide white wings of an Osprey gliding over the river. John found a Scarlet Pimpernel off the back porch. We've been enjoying a bumper crop of Chatterbox Orchids. The Pigeon Berry is in bloom, and the intoxicating Bee Bush. Barbara's Buttons are blossoming abundantly. The more you look, the more you find. Myriad birds fill the air with their trills and whistles, their buzzes and chirps. Summer Tanagers and Painted Buntings flash their colors as they flit from tree to tree.

When we take those moments to stand silently and observe together, the wind through the leaves and the flowing water and the melodic calls of the canyon refresh our perspectives. Nature reminds us who we really are, and how we are connected. It is through these deep impressions of nature respected, of wilderness preserved, that Westcave delivers its most vivid and powerful testimony.

Come visit Westcave Preserve again soon. Every day it's something old and every day it's something new.