Uprooted, an eco/travel blog

Chicken Shit Bingo is pretty straightforward. As a matter of fact, once your eyes adjust to the dimness of Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon, you pretty much can’t miss the game.
The bar is small, hot, and packed with Lone-Star-sippin’ Texans. Directly inside the entrance is a pool table with a bitchin’ NASCAR lamp hanging above it, [...]

It was a hot day, and the Housewives of Travis County were on a mission. Swimming was the goal, and on a day like this Krause Springs was the perfect destination.
They call themselves housewives, this set, but it’s really a posse of unemployed professionals, welders, artists and cooks (okay, and one real housewife) who were [...]

Compared to the North or the West, Texas smells. It’s not an unpleasant odor, but it’s unmistakeable: wafting up from the springy earth, a mix of decay and new life. A fertile smell, fecund: the smell of a marshland barely contained. Which, of course, Austin is.
The warm night air, as the evening winds pick up, [...]

Last night a huge storm rolled through Austin.

According to the neighbors who were out on the porch watching the weather with me, storms like this aren’t out of the ordinary. I’m like, really? Lighting and thunder every couple of seconds, funnel clouds, quarter-sized hailstones, and two inches of rain in half an hour— that’s normal?
But [...]

Meet the White-Lined Sphinx Moth, also known as the Hummingbird Moth. Why? Because it looks exactly like a gol-durn hummingbird, but with a strangely insectile head. These things are flitting about all over the place here, inserting their proboscii into various flora, buzzing slightly, and not caring at all if you get right up close [...]

I made it over the Rockies to the Western Slope… see? Shot this video on Sunday after bathing in the river.
I have lots more to show&tell, of course. Dust storms & giant moths & ice rain & dandelion wars, and I’ve only been here five days! Get excited, and go away and come back later. [...]

This place is amazing. I have tons to report, but today was my first day of work at Earthship Biotecture, and I’m exhausted. Gonna rest my sleepy arms & legs and get ready for another hard day’s work tomorrow.
So, in place of a proper entry, watch this silly video I made on my train ride [...]

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The land out here is not entirely welcoming. As it should be: this area is nearly pristine, not a place you want to share. Those who live here suit themselves in spines, and rub elbows rarely.
Jon has been here for ten years, and has seen some things; he left word that we weren’t [...]