New articles, new outlet

Yesterday I spent a little time reading over old posts. Until January 2008, I posted a lot of articles about various facets of sustainable landscaping and living. There were a few personal posts, too: announcing the adoption of Folsom the Dog, that a NativeBabe was on the way, and the arrival of NativeSage. After her birth, my posts became more about scheduling updates and notifications about updates to the website. B-O-R-I-N-G. The biggest surprise to me was that my writing style has changed. Without realizing it, I and my writing grew up a lot since I became Mommy.

Most of the articles back then were written for two magazines, a Dallas-area high-end home decor publication and an online women's lifestyle ezine. I posted links to my Earth Mother column in the women's ezine -- which is now defunct and the articles were not archived online. Maybe I will ask permission from both publishers to reprint to this blog. Or maybe I will simply forge ahead with new work, and a new "voice."

I am thrilled to announce that I am writing new content for WWN Rockport. My column is Texas Treehugger. If you would like to follow me, please go their website and subscribe to the free e-newsletter: http://www.wwnrockport.com. The first piece is titled "Planning and Planting Ahead for Hummingbird Season." Here's the link: http://www.wwnrockport.com/2015/06/plants-attract-hummingbirds-planting.html

The second piece will be published in this week's edition which goes out today. I hope you will enjoy reading my work and will share with your loved ones.

Words, even my words, can not describe how happy I am to be back, y'all. Thank you for your continued encouragement of our mission to restore Texas with native plants. Conserve, preserve, restore and celebrate Nature!

Weekly Plant Sales -- OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Unless you follow us on Facebook or Twitter, you have not heard from us in a long while. A lot of changes happening around here -- all good. Each week we have public plant sales in sunny, beautiful Rockport. Fridays 5:30-7:30p we co-host a Garden Party with GLOW (1815 Broadway in Rockport) in their newly opened Glow Garden. Drop by, have a garden-inspired cocktail, and peruse our expanding collection of native coastal plants. Sometimes there is live music, too! Saturdays 10a-2p we set up in front of Coastal Bend Health Foods (111 N. Austin in Rockport). Danya of Groovie Smoothie joins us occasionally and serves love-in-cup. Both sales provide a fun, inviting ambience, and are an excellent opportunity to pick up some great native plants. We might expand our sales to other venues in the near future, so please check back with us again.

Thank you!

Meet The Ilfreys: Our Road to Rockport

Nearly twenty years ago, David and I embarked on an epic journey from Plano, our hometown, through South Texas and the eastern half of Mexico.  For two months, we traveled by bicycle, bus, boat, with backpack and by airplane.  One night as we cycled through Karnes City and Kenedy, we found the RV park where we had planned to camp was closed for the season.  Radio station KAML was located across the street, and the owner graciously allowed us to camp behind the building.  Five years later, when we retraced our route, we stopped there to visit and thank him.  He was out for the day and had left his mother to look after the station.  She had recently retired from teaching in Rockport and recommended we check out this emerging artist community on the Texas Coast.  Our daytrip suddenly became an overnight excursion.

We watched the sunrise break over Aransas Bay and Rockport Beach Park.  Magical.  Instead of returning home to San Marcos – where we had recently completed our undergraduate studies – we spent the day exploring Texas’ First Blue Wave Beach, the Center for the Arts, Maritime Museum and Fulton Mansion.  This would be our new home…but we still had other adventures to pursue.

Fast forward to 2010.  Since our first look at Rockport in 1999, we had logged many more adventurous miles: we started our business (NativeDave.com), lived for a year in an RV in Northwest Florida, became parents, and relocated our company and family to Padre Island.  In January 2010, we began preparing for our first adventure-with-child…to transition our entire life to a 100% mobile environment.  For an entire year we “lived.worked.traveled together.”  A week or so before our departure, we received a call from a property owner in Rockport.  She was referred to us through a grapevine of business friends in Dallas-Ft. Worth and the Aransas/San Patricio Master Gardeners.  Her project intrigued us, and we were able to coordinate details of the design and installation while working and traveling to other locations across Texas.  Furthermore, her intent to restore the native vegetation fit snugly within our mission to conserve, preserve, restore and celebrate the Nature of Texas.

After a year of “being mobile”, we chose in the summer of 2012 to focus our mission and invest our family in Rockport-Fulton.  Today, we are residents and members of the business community.  NativeDave.com continues to create sustainable landscape designs but is also growing plants native to the Coastal Bend.  We will have plants available for purchase soon!  If you would like to receive our availability list, please send us a message at nativedaveinc@gmail.com.  RawYall.com is a brand new division of NativeDave that promotes a mostly plant-based diet as the foundation for healthy living.  Christy serves smoothies, soups, snacks and sweets Fridays and Saturdays from 10am to 2pm at Coastal Bend Health Foods.  Our family continues to live and work together, but we do not travel much anymore.  Instead, we find adventures in the simple yet meaningful life we are creating here in the Live Oak/Red Bay forest with our new friends, in our new hometown.