I went on a hike at Jacobs Well Natural Area yesterday morning. Jacobs Well is Hays County’s newest park and it is now open to the public. I was there for the opening ceremonies. Jacobs Well is an artesian spring and is the source of Cypress Creek in Wimberley.

It’s a beautiful location and the Hays County Master Naturalists have devoted many hundreds of hours of volunteer work on habitat restoration, trail building, and providing guided tours to the public.

Before the ceremonies, though, I took the opportunity to hike and photograph.

Here’s a photo of a pair of small white, wooly caterpillars in a Texas Persimmon (Diospyros texana) shrub. I do not know what species they are. Can anyone help identify them?

Unidentified White Caterpillars

Next is a photo of a Prickly Poppy (Argemone albiflora spp. texana) flower. The flower is not fully open. The crumpled white petals are beautiful. There are flower buds in the photo also and you can see why it’s called prickly.

I thought the prickly poppy flower would look interesting in black and white, so I did a quick conversion. What do you think?

This is view of Cypress Creek, downstream from Jacobs Well. The water is extremely clear, even though we had rain the previous two days. The creek bottom is smooth and rocky at this point.