Tejas Prairie

06/01/2026

Monday funny for you!☺️
We love dung beetles around these parts!
🫶💩🪲

06/01/2026

Just another day in paradise. 🦟🦟🦟

Mosquitoes mean rain fell.
Rain means the aquifers got a little fuller.
I’ll take that trade every time.

Can’t have one without the other — that’s just how Texas works.

The long game is native landscaping. Let the land rebuild its own checks and balances.

And honestly? I love stirring up mosquitoes on purpose just to watch the dragonflies go to work. A little human-insect cooperation — I flush them out, they eat them. 🤘

That’s the deal. That’s the whole deal when you native landscape.

There’s life outside of spraying chemicals at everything. The ecosystem already has answers — you just have to give it room to work.
Try it. Learn it. See what shows up.

Maybe you’ll get some dragonfly buddies too. 🐉

06/01/2026

It’s June. 🌈✨

Happy Pride Month to every beautiful soul brave enough to live authentically in a world that doesn’t always make that easy.

I have LGBTQ+ family and friends who I love deeply — people who carry a kind of courage I genuinely admire. The courage to just be themselves, fully and unapologetically, even when the world pushes back hard.

I will never not celebrate them.

I hope they feel seen, loved, and safe — not just this month, but every single day. And I hold onto the belief that we are moving toward a kinder, more compassionate world.
Slowly. Imperfectly. But forward.

Love is love. Always. 🏳️‍🌈❤️

06/01/2026

🐛🐛🐛🐛🦋🦋🦋🦋

Meet the future of North America’s largest moth! 🐛✨
Our park rangers spotted this Cecropia moth caterpillar—an unmistakable giant (up to 4–4.5 inches) with a bright green body and colorful tubercles: yellow and orange near the rear and pale blue along the sides. Despite the spiky look, Cecropia caterpillars don’t sting or bite and aren’t poisonous—perfect for a close look (please only observe and let wildlife be).
As these caterpillars grow, they change color from black → yellow → bluish‑green. By late summer, they spin sturdy cocoons and emerge next spring as spectacular moths with a 5–7 inch wingspan!

Fun fact: males can detect a female’s pheromones from over a mile away. Adults live only about two weeks—their sole mission is to mate and lay eggs. Nature is wild. 🌿🦋

Have you seen one, or other caterpillars on your visit? Share your photos in the comments and tell us where you spotted it!

05/31/2026

Friendly reminder: this page is run by a pissed-off veteran who got defunded for the crime of being a woman who served her country. (DEI)
Native plants are the mission.
Civic chaos is the bonus content☺️

If you find me offensive — I suggest you quit finding me🫡

05/31/2026

Dragonflies are out here working overtime in my yard and mosquitoes are on the menu. 🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟

Did you know dragonfly larvae live underwater for up to 2 years, eating mosquito larvae the whole time? They're not just pretty — they're a full-time pest control operation running 24/7 beneath the surface of every healthy pond, puddle, and rain garden. And when they turn into adults? Their mosquito menu continues!

So when you fog your yard with broad-spectrum pesticides after every rain, you're not just killing mosquitoes. You're killing the dragonflies, the bats, the birds.
Every single thing that was actually doing the job for FREE.

And it doesn't stop above ground.
Toads, beetles, and ground beetles spend part of their life cycle underground or in your soil and leaf litter.
Broad-spectrum lawn treatments — granular insecticides, soil drenches, systemic treatments — pe*****te that layer and kill larvae and pupae before they ever become the predators your yard depends on.
You're not just killing what you can see.
You're destroying the next generation of natural predators.
You're killing the entire ecosystem that would have kept mosquitoes in check.

The post-rain "SPRAY EVERYTHING" public panic? Spraying is a placebo only. It's doesn't work. And it's one of the reasons our pollinator and predator populations are collapsing.

Want fewer mosquitoes? Treat the source.
✔️ Eliminate standing water
✔️ Cut tall grass
✔️ Keep leaf litter in garden beds — it's a nursery for predators
✔️ Stop poisoning your yard's natural system

Nature built ecosystem checks and balances.
We keep burning it down and wondering why it doesn't work anymore?

👇 Meet your mosquito predator crew and what broad-spectrum treatments are silently wiping out:

Dragonflies — Adults eat 30–100+ mosquitoes/day.
Larvae live underwater up to 2 years hunting mosquito larvae.

Bats — 600–1,000 insects/hour. One bat. One hour. Do the math.

Purple Martins — Hundreds of flying insects daily. Give them a house and they'll show up to work.

Barn Swallows — 850+ insects/day. Free. Just stop poisoning the insects they need to survive.

Chickadees & Warblers — Hunt mosquitoes in leaf litter and shallow water. Another reason to leave the leaves.

Spiders — Orb weavers and hunting spiders trap adult mosquitoes daily. Ground-dwelling species live in soil and leaf litter — broadcast treatments destroy them.

Frogs & Toads — A single toad eats 10,000+ insects over a summer. Tadpoles consume larvae. Toad eggs and juveniles live in moist soil — soil treatments kill them.

🦟 Toxorhynchites (Predator Mosquitoes) — Their larvae eat other mosquito larvae in standing water. Adults don't bite. Most people have never heard of them because we've sprayed them out of existence! We had a fix and then killed it!

If you don't see these animals in your yard, ask yourself what you've been putting on your lawn or spraying in your air?

Me? I enjoy watching the dragonfly feasting in my air. I know they’re eating adult mosquitoes by the 100s🫶

#

05/31/2026

I served. I came home. I bought land and used federal conservation grants to restore native prairie habitat for seed production.

Yet last year DOGE cancelled my USDA IRA funding for “fraud, waste, and abuse.”

Meanwhile — the South Lawn where presidents welcomed thousands of wounded WWI Veterans every year? Flattened for a UFC fight on June 14th. They already budgeted $700K just to replace the grass they’re tearing up.
The Rose Garden is concrete.
A $400 million ballroom is being torn into the East Wing without federal planning approval?

But sure because I was DEI…I’m the fraud, waste, and abuse? 🤦🏻‍♀️

The embarrassment of this scene isn’t mine to carry.
I didn’t vote for this idiot.
I just hope we can fix it when he’s gone.

05/31/2026

05/31/2026

Mosquito season is in full swing after all this rain and local populations are peaking right now, that's actually normal.
Mosquito populations boom within a week of heavy rains, then natural predators move in and larval populations crash on their own. The trick to helping is targeting the larvae, not the adults.

I've used Mosquito Dunks and Mosquito Bits for years. They target larvae in standing water before mosquitoes ever become a problem and they don't touch your beneficial insects.
That part matters more than most people realize.
Fogging and pesticide spraying?
Largely ineffective against mosquitoes and they wipe out the beneficial insects that would naturally control pest populations for you.

You're undoing your own garden's defense system.
Dump standing water.
Treat what you can't dump.
Skip the spray.
Mow tall grass, or throw mosquito bits in areas you can't reach....

It works...trust me. Or just read all the reviews....Tagging link to order on this post!

05/30/2026

I almost let 2025 convince me to quit.
Instead, I slowed down.
And everything changed.
Not because life got easier but because I finally stopped rushing past it. 🫶☺️