Yes, change is constant, but 2025 felt especially unsettling to me. Despite the turbulence, tucked in the valleys, I found peace and beauty beyond my imagination. One such gift was getting to see the monarchs migrate through the Lantrip garden and the Texas Hill Country.
1. It began with just a few monarchs visiting the mistflowers at Lantrip in mid-October.
2 - 3. Then, I happened to be in quiet Castell on October 26th when what was already a beautiful morning became majestic; hundreds of monarchs rested on oak trees,
4. nectared on desert willow flowers,
5. puddled for a drink on the Llano River,
6. and fluttered over Enchanted Rock. Glen and I cooled our backs on the sacred granite with our eyes up, wide open to catch the flickering of monarch wings miles deep in the perfect shade of sky blue.
7. Back at Lantrip, a little pocket of nature nestled in Houston, the monarchs visited the mistflowers and students throughout the rest of October into November.
I am forever changed. In my Octobers to come, I will never not crane my neck to the sky in hopes of glimpsing again the orange, black and white vessels of resilience.
My thirst for nature can be traced from Bixby, Lantrip, permaculture, the backyard chickens, on and on, all the way back to my mom.
She’s a cute little lady, effortlessly stylish, and tiny. Underneath her sweet smile and pleasant wit, she's feisty, stubborn, and straight up annoying. Of course, take this with many grains of salt as I am her feisty, stubborn daughter.
Most of all, she is strong. At 76 years of age, and perhaps, pounds, she would walk a half mile to get groceries and carry them the half mile back home. She would garden for hours, as she has daily for decades.
For her, her love of nature started when she was tiny the first time around. In her village, there was an elderly gentleman who tended a prolifically flowering garden. She was drawn in, like a bee to pollen, and she harvested all the green sorcery she could from the gardener.
I love her, but our relationship is not of the friend and open conversation ilk. So, as I looked for ways to connect with her, finally reaching my hands into the soil was a clear path to her. In addition to seeing her care for her plants as I was growing up (she loved to scold me with – “The plants, they listen to me more than you do!”), I got a healthy dose of nature in her village as a child as well. That lush, lively place became an emotional oasis for me, a place I visited in my mind whenever I was frustrated or sad.
Some recent challenges may change how she’s able to tend to her plants, but I trust her stubborn spirit will find a way again. For now, I’m honored to share just an ounce of the splendor her thumbs have guided into this world.
1 - her desert rose of more than 20 years
2 - a striking zinnia
3 - orchids are one of her favorites
4, 5 - as are roses
6 - butterfly iris
7 - birds of paradise
8 - daylily
9 - a bountiful lemonquat tree
10 - harvesting tomatoes
11 - harvesting string beans
12 - eggplants
13 - sweet, sweet honeysuckle
14 - a colorful array
15 - pea flowers
16 - passionfruit flower
17 - passionfruit
18 - flourishing fig
19 - bird’s eye bush
20 - gardening
Lantrip Elementary, your little peace of Mother Earth has nurtured so many in 2024.
I love the way you
Teach me to see time differently.
(1-6) You demand I move slowly within you. In return, I receive the minute movements of pollinators, the glad gleam of water droplets, the divine smells of molecular marvels.
You give so much more than I can perceive.
(7-10) Your resilience grounds me; your arc of time is greater than my daily worries.
Teach me to see death differently.
(11) In Summer you were overgrown and I had to mow you. I ran the monstrous machine over your green, tearing down grass while feeling torn on the inside…
How many creatures were I evicting? How many beings were I killing?
I am Amanda, destroyer of worlds.
My mentors remind me, we’re clearing a path to steward you.
Sure enough the many things little human visitors could not tend to before, we could now enjoy together again.
(12) In Fall I tried to prune. I agonized over every branch I cut. I leaned on fellow steward Adam–who is not afflicted with a strange attachment to branches–to cut away.
The branches become cover for your ground, your plants redirect their energies, and ever more branches reach out with vigor.
(13) In Winter I’d had it! with the stronghold of Johnson grass in the pocket prairie. I pulled one bunch, chasing the root’s winding path underground, inches upon inches until its end. I pulled another, and then another.
I gained a sick satisfaction in unearthing them. Perhaps I was angry that day. Even so, I could not help admiring their talent for taking hold.
I await new things to take their void.
Hug the children. (14-15) They tickle you with their feet, graze your sweetest fruits, and dig into you. You absorb it all and bounce back with more!
Connect us. (16) 2024 saw the change of staff and people, politics, and pressures beyond your bounds. And yet, I got to learn of your history before my time with you, learn how I am a part of your long tradition of community stewards.
IG is telling me to shut up–limit of character. I aim to share more elsewhere soon.
For now, I echo, I’m spoiled by your movements with time, a rhythm unmetered, yet well tuned. Your abun-dance continues.
In this quiet nook I relish near the end of 2024, I reflect. Joe is a thought I return to often.
I am privileged to have the time I had with Joe. It lasted only a year, but I gained a lifetime of memories with him.
I am still piecing together my time with him, retracing my steps, reliving in my bones the feeling of being next to him. I hope to reach back in the time before my time in his life, to piece together his life before our timelines became entangled.
In the meantime, I want to share…these photos, some voice recordings, and a @grownupstorytime reading. You can find them through “A Year with Joe” at amandashih.com/a-year-with-joe
A late recap from me about CTS 2024, which was almost a month ago. Typical me!
So many lovely stories shared already!! I wanted to highlight a couple moments around the edges I got to treasure:
1. Time by the Llano
2. Carpooling with Maxwell to the race :) and getting to spend time with @maddierob3 on the way to the event. I got to learn more about her important work supporting children's mental health. I also fangirled about her athletic feats :).
3. Bearing witness to @kandise_5 's camping skills.
Skills surpassing all the camping skills I’ve heretofore seen from the bois. I mean like, yo, she made a fire in a tin can and then proceeded to cook scrumptious COD FRIED RICE on said fire.
4. Adventures with the kiddos :).
5. Cheering on the bois with @theheathwife in the chilly late hours :).
6. Catching up with @_mc_neal . Just always a great time :).
7. Wildin’ out with Kathy on Saturday.
We set out to bike maybe 15 miles but then, we egged each other on and ended up biking 50+ miles. And she reminded me that swimming isn’t that scary.
8. Puppy Porkchop. Twisted Bitch Cattle Company. Castell General Store and all around Castell welcome.
Volunteering @texasshowdownseries is always a great time :). I can’t wait to be in the saddle at East Texas Showdown in March as part of the @gravelbois again 🤘. And of course, all the group camps and training in between, including the Friendsgiving bikepacking trip to SFA, which is right around the corner!
Lately, this experience is a feast for my senses – bees rolling in the bowl of these poppy petals to collect pollen from the stamen (1).
The bees are hard at work, and yet, I anthropomorphize their rolling as frolicking. I can’t help but be tickled by the thought. I mean, check out those poofy pollen pants!!!
These poppies (1, 2, 3) sprouted from seeds sowed by the young students of Lantrip. This berm/mound (4) formed from dirt dug by volunteers from a low point in the orchard for a rain garden (5) in October.
There is more work to be done, but the really great irises (6), spiderworts (6), spotflowers (7), buttonbush, saltmarsh-mallows, coneflowers, and native grasses from @green_star_wetland_plants seem to be settling into the rain garden.
In mid-January, I looked on with bated breath and concern at the bare state of the berm (8) and the rain garden (9). What had I done or not done that I should've? Now, I marvel at the lives they hold, seen (10) and unseen.
I am so, so spoiled to be able to bear witness to the way spring is shaping up in this garden this year.
@lantrippto@urbanharvesthouston
2023-09-10:
On a crisp, fall morning, when the weather is about as perfect as it can be, a quick respite from the lingering heat, I meet Joe. Joe has been painting the window signs at a friend’s bar.
He talks about how he drafts his designs on paper, makes holes along his lines, and then, holding the design to the window, he brushes baby powder through the holes to transfer the reference lines onto the windows.
“You know who came up with that? Michelangelo, he did it for the Sistine Chapel,” he shares. He talks about intent, and freehand painting…and being a sign-painter all over Houston, way way back, when what are now decals on trucks would be hand-painted, with gold-leaf applied for flourish.
Watching his aura as he feels his memories, he and I taste his words as he puts form to his thoughts, and I am transported to a more colorful time. He painted signs downtown, in the Heights, in Montrose, in River Oaks, for clients big and small, restaurants, cafes, bars…signs I've used to lead me without knowing the hands behind them. He had friends who also lettered by hand all over town. His generation of sign painters, artisans, craftspersons…they are slowly fading, wearing and weathering as the bonds in their paints break with each rising sun.
Joe sees my bike and his eyes light up. We talk bikes for a good hour or so. He loves to bike around, sometimes carting his supplies with him. We talk about the rush rush of the times of today, the obnoxious, tiring, incessant drum of capitalism.
I am not ready to leave him, but I am also itching to be on my way. And so, I steal a few more moments, and then I say goodbye.
Joe is 75, the same age as my mother. I admire them both for their love, dedication, and study of their crafts. I catch only glimpses of the worlds of knowledge and wisdom between their ears, whispers of the scores of pains and joys in their heartbeats. I steel myself against the thought of when their bodies will finally fail their spirits. I wish to transfer even just an ounce of their essence onto my perspective.
Here follows long-winding thoughts…
11-04. I get a chance to see "A Gift From The Bower" at Locke Surls, @diverseworks .
@cielito.no.tan.lindo and @sretlawk , amazing artists themselves, warmly welcome me to the space. We chat about the beauty of the surrounding woods, about nature as inspiration, material, restoration, interaction…
Closing (for now?) on Nov 18th, you, like me, might enjoy this exhibit a lot if you like nature, sculptures you can walk around, and day-trips. The pictures, artist statements, and videos from the opening at giftfromthebower.org/artists beautifully capture the pieces and the thoughts of the artists.
Here are little trinkets of my time there with these works.
It was a clear sunny day. I loved seeing these in person. Getting to approach each one from a wooded distance that cleared, sometimes getting glimpses of what would be the “back” of a piece first, I felt an intimacy, and then, a big grandness as I walked up to each piece.
1 Swing Set: Share a Share, Leticia R. Bajuyo (bower 10)
2 Transient, Ronald L. Jones (7)
3 - 4 Bower Boat, Sharon Kopriva (3)
5 sonic overlook, Patrick Renner (6)
6 Learning to Fly, Sherry Owens & Art Shirer (9)
7- 8 The Forest Chair, Carlos Canul & Rachel Gardner (11)
9 shaggy dwarf morning-glory hanging out with the blue Bower Bird, Susan Budge (1)
10 barn
1 — I love the intention and the origin of this. An added layer for me is that while these wooden swings are meant to be sat on, they remind me of wooden swings in China I stood on as a 5 year old; we would bend our knees, up and down, to generate the momentum needed to swing.
2 — I enjoy traversing this lovely heart maze, and finding this quiet piece of nature balanced on the edge.
3 - 4 — I’m very into this metaphor of the skeletal ribs, boats, and nest…
5 — Beautiful, and I love the way the shadows laid on this day…
6 — Ethereal…
7 - 8 — I love the scale of this chair, the animals resting upon it, and the poetry on the steps.
9 — The sculpture itself is gorgeous with its striking blues. I don’t know if this is planned or coincidental, but on this day, I find these blue flowers exclusively in this bower, matching the blues on the sculpture.
10-12:
I am fortunate to hike Enchanted Rock. I take way too many pictures of plants and shit; such is my current nature 🤷.
I am happy to see morning glories and dayflowers there, colorful splashes of Home. The vernal pools and the little communities fascinate me, each a menagerie of life to marvel at. The air is thin, clean, sweet. Moss, fungi, soil, tadpoles…at this altitude? Also, in this wind? Flower petals hang on as they flap about…steadfast, delicate, beautiful, persevering.
Now, back in Houston, I chance upon some of the same species and think of Enchanted Rock.
Grateful for this stallion.
I've been reflecting about this steadfast steed that carries me all over Houston and sometimes beyond. What a marvel. What a spirit :). From rowdy rides with frolicking friends to rolling in to lively shows to rolling hills to quiet streams...
Oh, the places we'll go 😉. I think your name is
Bixby the Steed
1 you in foggy morning light, in a cabin
2 somewhere Texas
3 you overlooking a prairie at memorial park
4 you in the woods of memorial park
5 a rare picture of a young Bixby, stickerless
Another month, another excellent GUST!
From a beautiful birth, to growing adventures and pains, to love, to a pivot inches away from death's doorstep...
Recording now at YouTube.com/@grownupstorytime
and
bit.ly/gust162
Only some of the flowers of Lantrip...
So grateful to get to spend time in this garden/orchard.
Some plantings didn't make it through the heat and drought, but still so much to admire. Plus, I'm not exactly a practiced gardener so these flowers are a testament to nature's resilience.
1 melon
2 cowpea
3 basil
4 petunia
5 eggplant
6 tropical milkweed
7 mallow/cotton
8 not frogfruit!! I was wrong!!! Horseherb!!!!
9 azure blue sage
10 mallow/turkscap lily
