Talks & Walks Calendar

Sustainable Horizons Does Spring Creek Forest Preserve: Ranger Unit

Sept 12 Thurs from 11 am to 1:30 pm
Halff Park Trailhead, 4695 Ranger Drive, Garland TX 75040

Are you a homeschooling family or considering it? Join Sustainable Horizons, a dynamic homeschoolers co-op, as we experience Spring Creek Forest Preserve in north Garland.

We’ll explore the wild Ranger Unit of the preserve, going through deep forest with immense trees on a trail that often swings very close to Spring Creek. If we’re lucky, we’ll find the route down into the creek. This is a very quiet and untamed section of the preserve.

Text Marcie at 214-545-8154 to join.

Spring Creek Forest Preserve is one of the 25 adventure chapters in Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth https://Wild-DFW.com/ (Timber Press).

Trinity River Book Festival

Saturday, September 14, 8 am to 2 pm
Trinity Park Pavilion #1 at Trinity River Park
2501 W 7th St. in Fort Worth

I’ll have a booth for book sales and signing, so come see me for a chat!

I’ll also be on a panel about naturalist books with Michael Smith, author of Mindfulness in Texas Nature, moderated by Dana Austin, time to be announced.

Trinity River Book Festival is a free multicultural event during National Literacy Month. A book lover’s paradise, with books of all genres and for all ages. Panels, talks, book club meetups, games, awards, readers speed dating, poetry in the park, and more.

The Dock Bookshop is founder and managing partner of the Trinity River Book Festival.

Also includes:
~ Run-to-Read, a 5k/1k, run/walk
~ Lit Crawl Fort Worth, a project of the TRBF through the Litquake Foundation.

TO BE RESCHEDULED — Why is North Texas an epic ecotone and how is that special? What is the Great Trinity Forest the easternmost example of? How do tilted layers of bedrock shape our three ecoregions, foster a plethora of soil types, and lead to our plant and wildlife diversity? From the ancient inland ocean and melting ice caps that forged North Texas, to the goliath creeks and many forks of the Trinity, get clear on how water shapes our local landscape.

Discover places to experience these tenets firsthand. Enjoy astounding photography by skilled naturalists of hardwood bottomland forests and Eastern Cross Timbers, soaring limestone escarpments, lush wetlands, and rare remnants of Blackland and Fort Worth Prairies. Get to know a diverse community of volunteers working for nature.

Get your rock nerd on! From the geology/paleontology chapter of Amy Martin’s Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth.

Blackland Prairie Chapter

The Moon & Nature at Night + Full Harvest Moon cemetery walk
Sponsored by Constellation of Living Memorials

Sept 16 Mon – 6:30 to 8:30 pm

T.B.O.C. Community Church
6508 Military Parkway, Dallas TX 75227

Known by many as the Moonlady, Amy Martin, author of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth, merges fascinating nocturnal nature insights from the book with her deep knowledge of the Moon. After this talk, you’ll be a pro-level Moon watcher able to predict where it will be at any time. Understand synchrony which creates tides and causes us to only see one side of the Moon. Discover how darkness and the Moon impact plants and wildlife, especially in urban areas. Learn how to live in tune with the Moon with gardening based on the lunar phases.

Afterwards, we will take a Full Moon walk through the adjacent historic W. W. Glover Cemetery and learn firsthand about Constellation of Living Memorials’ work transforming cemeteries into native plant habitats and wildlife sanctuaries.

Goat Island Preserve: Hike North Texas with Dallas Sierra Club & Wild DFW

Sept. 21 Sat – 9:30 am to 2 pm

Goat Island Preserve
2800 Post Oak Rd, Hutchins, TX 75141

Enjoy long-distance hikes through fascinating large preserves and parks — without leaving DFW. Dallas Sierra Club joins with Amy Martin, author of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth, to offer quarterly hikes on trails as wild as North Texas has to offer. Explore these places with naturalists and others that know them the best.

Fall offering: Goat Island Preserve, part of the Dallas County Open Space system. A gorgeous slice of Great Trinity Forest fronting the Trinity River. Bottomland forest with some huge trees. Hike route will include birdwatching trails on Goat Island itself and a hike down Joe’s Riverside Trail to a picnic area for a break, and then further down the trail, and back up the interior trail. Hike length: apx 7 miles

Points-of-interest naturalist mini-breaks: birdwatching across from Southside Water Treatment Plant… multiple river overlooks… viewing and history of Lock & Dam #2.

We hope these hikes will help Dallas and surroundings develop a mindset of embracing its nature with a deep sense of pride. From that will arise more trails and greater land preservation.

Donations for hike leader thank-you gifts and park/preserve donations appreciated: TBA.

Wild DFWs available for purchase. Book info.

Hike North Texas Specifics
<> Typical hike length: 4 to 7 miles. Options for additional miles provided.
<> Typical hike time: 4 to 5 hours.

This will be unfettered nature, so keep in mind:
<> Terrain will frequently be rugged with some elevation changes.
<> Trails narrow will always be dirt and usually narrow, but with some easy sections.
<> While we’ll go at a good pace, there will be stops for exceptional naturalist points of interest.

Come prepared:
<> Wear closed-toed shoes and long pants.
<> Pack multiple water bottles (24 oz. recommended.
<> Bring a bag lunch, snack bars and such for our mid-way break.

Prairies of North Texas

Prairie & Timbers Audubon
https://prairieandtimbers.org/

Sept 24 Tues
7 pm socialize
7:30 meeting & program

Prairies of North Texas
from the Wild DFW chapter: Where Forest Meets Prairie

From the rainforest-thick Blackland Prairie to the sparse yet colorful Fort Worth Prairie, and the prairie patches found in Eastern Cross Timbers and Post Oak Savannah, get to know the native grasslands of North Texas. Learn how these prairies became endangered ecosystems and why they are the key to reducing the urban heat island effect, sequestering carbon to reduce global warming impact, and supporting pollinators. Take a tour of the prairies of North Texas through prosaic passages and jaw-dropping photos from Amy Martin’s Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth on Timber Press. Get to know a robust community of prairie defenders.

TO BE RESCHEDULED – Barnes & Noble Allen store grand opening w special guest: Bob Mione from Connemara Meadowschdules Barnes & Noble Allen store grand opening

Oct 4 Friday at 5 to 7pm

Book reading and community chat

Watters Creek Village, 988 Village Green Dr, Allen, TX 75013

Come hang out at Barnes & Noble Allen’s cool intimate space in this new store on its first weekend of opening. I’ll read passages from the book and share cool facts from the book’s field guide. We’ll discuss great places in DFW for fall wildflowers and foliage. Purchase a Wild DFW and get it signed. Special guest Bob Mione from Connemara Meadow, just a couple miles from the store, will speak on their amazing prairie restoration project.

Wild DFW: Questas, Cross Timbers & More

October 5 Sat. — 10 am to noon

Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve

5201 Bowman Springs Rd. Arlington TX 76017

https ://www.facebook.com/ FriendsofSCNP/

Come re-create the adventure chapter on Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve from Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth (https://Wild-DFW.com/) with members of Friends of Sheri Capehart Nature Preserve. You’ve read about Eastern Cross Timbers in Wild DFW, Now experience the finest remnant of it in North Texas. The geology chapter of Wild DFW talks extensively about how our tilted layers of bedrock shape the landscape. Now walk that as you explore a cuesta limestone formation. The prairies will be in flower. The blackjack and post oak leaves will be fresh and luminous green. Warm weather will have all the lizards skittering about. Songbirds will be fledging their young. What a grand time we will have! 

A journalist and writer for over 40 years, Amy Martin is the author of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth (Wild-DFW.com), and Itchy Business: How to Treat the Poison Ivy and Poison Oak Rash, Prevent Exposure and Eradicate the Plant (Itchy.biz). She is currently senior features writer for Green Source DFW (GreenSourceDFW.org). Her current project is Ned Fritz Legacy (NedFritz.com), a biographical website of Ned Fritz, Texas’ most famous environmentalist. For twelve years, she managed wildlife habitat rehabilitation on a private nature preserve in northeast Texas, including converting fifteen acres of pasture into tallgrass prairie. Find her writings at Moonlady.com.

Friends of Piedmont Ridge Workdays!

Mark your calendars please:
Oct 6 Sun.
Nov 3 Sun.
Both from 1:30 to 4 pm

Meet in the parking lot at 2725 N Jim Miller Rd, Dallas TX 75217, a few blocks south of Scyene by the baseball field.

Please register so we can notify you of last-minute changes: https://volunteersignup.org/99ETT

For Oct 6 Sun, we’ll be getting the trail ready for the onslaught of fall foliage hikers. We’ve finalized the beautification agreement with Dallas Parks & Recreation (yay Kristi!), so we’re cleared to cut. So bring loppers and we’ll widen the Lacywood and Scyene Overlook Trail, and begin the privet clearing process around trees we’ve identified as exceptional. We’ll also test out the temporary wayfinding signs and make sure they make sense to everyone. Bring trash sacks for litter picking.

Nov 3 Sun will be more of the same, with the added bonus of enjoying fall foliage as we do.

Trail maintenance support provided by Trinity Coalition: https://trinitycoalition.org/

Message us your email address to be added to the Friends of Piedmont Ridge email list.

Friends of Piedmont Ridge (White Rock Bluffs) Facebook page coming soon!

The Trinity River: The Watery Tie that Binds North Texas
talk and river walk
Saturday November 2 at 1 to 2:30 pm

John Bunker Sands Wetland Center
655 Martin Ln, Combine, TX 75159
https://wetlandcenter.com/

Talk followed (hopefully) by special walk for a rare opportunity to see the East Fork, by permission of the North Texas Municipal Water District. OR talk followed by a saunter on the boardwalks.

<> The Trinity River: The Watery Tie that Binds North Texas <>

There is only one river in North Texas: the Trinity. Once rejected and forgotten, paid attention to only when it floods, the Trinity is transforming from a place of refuse to refuge. First, a short romp through our river follies, like when the West Fork was called River of Death and the insane attempts to turn the Trinity into a barge canal to the Gulf. Then we’ll take a tour of the Trinity’s four forks—Clear, East, Elm, and West—exploring each one’s unique characteristics, plus the nature preserves and attractions they are home to. This riverine network is home to the Trinity River Paddling Trail, a National Park Service recreation trail with over 120 miles of floating fun.

Photo of the Trinity River in the Great Trinity Forest by Daniel Koglin.

Friday, October 18 at 7 to 9 pm

Twelve Hills Nature Center https://twelvehills.org/
817 Mary Cliff Rd, Dallas, TX 75208

Take a walk in the Full Moon light with Amy Martin, the Moonlady and author of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth. We’ll recreate the hike from Wild DFWs’s After Dark chapter with Marcie Haley and Kristi Kerr Leonard.

But first, let’s talk poetic about Moon, how the lunar phases affect our mood and shape wildlife’s activities. Attendees acting as the Sun, Earth, and Moon, attendees will embody the lunar phases to show how they’re created as Amy explains the pertinent points of each one. Plus why life on Earth owes its existence to the Moon and synchrony.

Then off on a night hike with breaks for discussing the qualities of moonlight and why the Moon moves us so deeply. Plus plenty of Moon-shadow dancing and Moon song singing. Bring ultraviolet lights to see lichens glow!

Twelve Hills Nature Center

October 26 Saturday – 1 to 3 pm

North Haven Gardens, 7700 Northaven Rd, Dallas, TX 75230

A breathless and breathtaking photo-filled tour of 25 top nature spaces in North Texas from Amy Martin’s popular Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth (Timber Press).

Astounding color photos bring alive peak experiences from the 25 featured hiking adventures through hardwood bottomland forests and Eastern Cross Timbers, soaring limestone escarpments, lush wetlands, and rare remnants of Blackland and Fort Worth Prairies. Get to know a diverse community of volunteers working for nature.

Martin nearly died four years ago from a severely broken neck. She learned to walk again by hiking natural trails. Those hikes are an integral part of Wild DFW. Hear her inspiring story woven with rhapsodic passages from the book. Learn how a little knowledge about natural history and ecology can transform your perception of North Texas nature.

In honor of Native Plant Month, Martin will precede the talk with a few minutes of her favorite native plants from the book’s field guide and share which of the 25 places in the book’s hiking adventure section has the richest diversity of native plants.

Photo of wildflowers in Oak Point Nature Preserve in Plano by Carol Clark.

A Prairie in Plano — take a walk and find out

Blackland Prairie chapter Native Prairies Association of Texas
https://texasprairie.org/blackland-chapter/

October 27 Sunday
1 to 4 pm

Park on Acorn Dr near Abbotsford. Google maps marker: https://maps.app.goo.gl/baStRsuYoJYDbH5DA

Please register so we can notify you if anything changes: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/npatblacklandchapter/1387694

Special guest (to be confirmed): Carol Clark of the Wild DFW chapter on Oak Point

A native prairie remnant in the middle of Plano? Come experience the Blackland Prairie of Oak Point Park & Nature Preserve and recreate the walk in that adventure chapter of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth. (Book info: https://Wild-DFW.com/) The prairie will be rich with the gold and rust seedheads of Indiangrass, switchgrass, little and big bluestem, with lingering yellows of Maximilian sunflower and tall goldenrod.

We’ll wander off trail through a prairie section east of Los Rios Blvd., take a paved trail underneath the thoroughfare, and connect with Old Morton Vale Rd (closed to traffic). Then we’ll meander along a cute low wooden fence to explore a prairie remnant and prairie restoration that Carol Clark and Collin County NPSOT prevented from being developed into a concert facility, and cross Los Rios to return.

<>

Wear long pants and sturdy shoes as it will be off trail and dirt trail. Sun visor or hat suggested as there’s no shade. Pack plenty of water. Bug spray or sulfur for chiggers is prudent. No bathroom facilities along the route. iNaturalist observations appreciated.

Photos by Carol Clark.

Friends of Piedmont Ridge Workdays!

Mark your calendars please:
Oct 6 Sun.
Nov 3 Sun.
Both from 1:30 to 4 pm

Meet in the parking lot at 2725 N Jim Miller Rd, Dallas TX 75217, a few blocks south of Scyene by the baseball field.

Please register so we can notify you of last-minute changes: https://volunteersignup.org/99ETT

For Oct 6 Sun, we’ll be getting the trail ready for the onslaught of fall foliage hikers. We’ve finalized the beautification agreement with Dallas Parks & Recreation (yay Kristi!), so we’re cleared to cut. So bring loppers and we’ll widen the Lacywood and Scyene Overlook Trail, and begin the privet clearing process around trees we’ve identified as exceptional. We’ll also test out the temporary wayfinding signs and make sure they make sense to everyone. Bring trash sacks for litter picking.

Nov 3 Sun will be more of the same, with the added bonus of enjoying fall foliage as we do.

Trail maintenance support provided by Trinity Coalition: https://trinitycoalition.org/

Message us your email address to be added to the Friends of Piedmont Ridge email list.

Friends of Piedmont Ridge (White Rock Bluffs) Facebook page coming soon!

Monday, November 4, 2024 — 10 am to noon

AARP 3880 Casa Linda Dallas

Casa View Assembly of God

9949 Ferguson Road, Dallas, TX 75228

Wild DFW: The Nature We Call Home

Blending poetic passages from the book Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth with her own profound experiences, and illustrated with the book’s astounding photographs, Amy Martin will inspire about the nature we call home and how it helped her heal from a near-fatal spinal injury. The passion of the prairie, the nurturing bottomland forest, the elusive Trinity River, the soaring escarpments, and the survivor Eastern Cross Timbers, Amy will bring insight into how to appreciate and explore our North Texas nature.

Piedmont Ridge: Hike North Texas with Dallas Sierra Club & Wild DFW

Nov 9 Sat – 9:30 am to 2 pm

2725 N Jim Miller Rd Dallas TX 75217 (softball field parking lot) Google maps

Enjoy long-distance hikes through fascinating large preserves and parks — without leaving DFW. Dallas Sierra Club joins with Amy Martin, author of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth, to offer quarterly hikes on trails as wild as North Texas has to offer. Explore these places with naturalists and others that know them the best. 

First up: Piedmont Ridge, part of the Dallas parks system and the northernmost section of the Great Trinity Forest. Best place to experience fall foliage in Dallas. We’ll hike every trail there. Two sections of soaring limestone escarpment with unique upland woods (Scyene/Lacywood Overlook Trails and Piedmont Ridge Trail), connected by a long stretch of lush bottomland forest (JJ Beeman Trail). About 5 miles.

Points-of-interest naturalist mini-breaks: 4 overlooks that afford views of the Great Trinity Forest (in autumn colors!), downtown and across the county to Cedar Hill… historic Comanche eastern red cedar lodgepole woods… historic settlers’ black walnut grove… ridgetop Blackland Prairie.

We hope these hikes will help Dallas and surroundings develop a mindset of embracing its nature with a deep sense of pride. From that will arise more trails and greater land preservation. You don’t have to travel far for great nature.

Donations for hike leader thank-you gifts and park/preserve donations appreciated: TBA. 

Wild DFWs available for purchase. Book info.

Hike North Texas Specifics

• Typical hike length: 4 to 7 miles. Options for additional miles provided. 
• Typical hike time: 4 to 5 hours.

This will be unfettered nature, so keep in mind: 

• Terrain will frequently be rugged with some elevation changes. 
• Trails narrow will always be dirt and usually narrow, but with some easy sections.  
• While we’ll go at a good pace, there will be stops for exceptional naturalist points of interest. 

Come prepared: 

• Wear closed-toed shoes and long pants. 
• Pack multiple water bottles (24 oz. recommended.
• Bring a bag lunch, snack bars and such for our mid-way break. 

Lawyer and activist Ned Fritz was responsible for three of Texas most important nature groups, a savior of East Texas forests by establishing five wilderness areas and the Big Thicket National Preserve, and the leader who kept the Trinity River from being straightened and turned into an industrial barge canal.

He was also the first in the state, and possibly the nation, to garner huge news headlines in defense of native plants. For this he was given the Charles Leonard Weddle Memorial Award in 2000 from Native Plant Society of Texas.

Ned and Genie Fritz had purchased land off Bachman Creek in 1952 and built a home. He kept the yard wild like a prairie. But as the street gentrified, not all neighbors approved. In 1970, the city weed inspector was called and called and called. Each time, Ned beat it back on technicalities. The city threatened to take him to court. What a mistake that was. The trial, called Great Weed War, gained nationwide press. Learn how he won.

Presented by the team creating Ned Fritz Legacy, a biographical website about Ned.

Texas Woman’s University, Ann Stuart Science Complex (ASSC) Room 259. Park along Old Main Circle (employee parking) on the west side of the building or in any other nearby lot.

More about the host: Trinity Forks chapter Native Plant Society of Texas  

Trinity Forks