4-H Wildlife

We had our first wildlife contest last Wednesday and so have been busy preparing for that. Junior didn't want to do the contest (and I don't blame him) but Daisy did. She scored well considering it was her first year (unless you count all that 3 years ago) and it is a hard contest.

So you can get an idea of what was involved, there are 4 parts of the contest: plant ID and preferences; habitat management; hunter safety; and techniques. In plant ID they have 59 or 60 plants to be able to recognize and tell if it is the prefered plant of waterfowl, deer, squirrel, dove, quail and turkey (some plants can have almost all of them and some have none of them). To give you an idea of how hard this is, here is the plant list:

• American Beautyberry
• Annual sunflower
• Ash
• Bahiagrass
• Beech
• Blackcherry
• Black-gum
• Blackjack oak
• Blueberry (Sparkleberry)
• Broomsedge bluestem
• Bullnettle
• Bumelia (chittimwood)
• Catclaw sensitive briar
• Cattail
• Cottonwood
• Croton
• Dewberry (blackberry)
• Dogwood
• Duckweed
• Elm
• Grapes
• Greenbriar
• Hackberry
• Hickory
• Holly
• Honeysuckle
• Jessamine
• Johnsongrass
• Juniper
• Lespedeza
• Live oak
• Longleaf uniola
• Magnolia
• Mistletoe
• Mulberry
• Partridge pea
• Pecan
• Persimmon
• Plum
• Post oak
• Prickly ash (Hurcules club)
• Prickly pear
• Rattan (Alabama Supplejack)
• Redbud
• Red oak
• Red maple
• Rescuegrass
• Rusty blackhaw
• Ryegrass
• Sassafras
• Smartweed
• Sumac – Flameleaf
• Switchgrass
• Vaseygrass
• Vetch
• Water oak
• Western ragweed
• White oak
• Wildrye
• Yaupon

As if that wasn't enough, the hunter safety part is the general hunter safety that would be part of the hunter safety course but also any new thing in the Texas Parks and Wildlife Outdoor Annual.

 In the Habitat Management portion they are shown an area and given a story with this area and asked if the area is capable of supporting turkey or deer etc. They are also asked what should be done to make that area capable of supporting the chosen animal. The difficulty with this part is the "experts" giving the contest don't always agree so you have to hope that you think about it the same way as the one judging your answers.

And the techniques are quite possibly the worst part. They can put any animal that has lived in the wild in Texas and ask a question about it such as what type of skull is this, is this animal native to Texas, is this bird wing from a mature or juvenile bird. They also have to be able to age a deer by its jawbone.

She has another contest over this in a couple weeks so we have more studying to do.

Aspidistra - Cast Iron

I may have mentioned that I like the unusual common plant names such as lipstick plant, wax plant, closet plant, corn plant. Maidenhair fern just sounded pretty even though I wouldn't know if from a Boston Fern - there is a difference right?

so when I heard of one called the "cast iron plant" I was very intrigued. And when I heard that it is called cast iron because it is nearly impossible to kill (yet is not invasive), I wanted one. So I have been keeping my eye out for one but it is not as common now although it was a popular plant of the Victorian age.

So anyway, we went to a nursery today to look at the plants - I was not going to buy any. Then I saw the aspidistra.

Lovely and green.

And oddly familiar.

I am pretty sure we have a huge amount of aspidistra growing. Huge. It doesn't like full sun but it keeps spreading elsewhere. I had dug up a bunch a couple years ago and divided it out and then ran out of space for it all. I had even left a large amount in a bucket for over a year and then noticed it was still alive and doing well.

An empty bucket no dirt soil only rainwater. And it was a drought.

But it was doing well.

I thought "It has got to be cast iron plant." And it is!

A plant that I have been looking for in nurseries is in my yard - soon to be also in my house.

I love plants I can't kill.