Texan by Nature

NOW MORE songs that can help you keep track of your shower time and conserve water this week! (Country Edition) Have you heard of a Texan Shower? 🚿 A Texan shower consists of: ⏰In and out in 4 minutes 🎤Your best karaoke song 🚫No dancing 💰Extra money in your pocket at the end of the month Texan showers help you save ~3,000 gallons of water each year– per Texan. BTW, with #TxWAC (Texas Water Action Collaborative) we’re matching funders to projects that improve Texas water quality, quantity, and resilience! So far, we’ve activated over $4.7M in new investments 💸💧 #HappyWaterWednesday

🍃Aside from making your life beautiful…nature can help BOOST your test scores, too? 📗Students exposed to nature through outdoor classrooms or even just seeing the color GREEN are more attentive, score higher on standardized tests, retain more knowledge, and are more engaged during lessons. 🚸With Texas being home to 10% of the United States K-12 population, we opportunities to shape the FUTURE of the nation abound! These #ConservationPartners are connecting kids to the SCIENCE in NATURE in Texas, give them a follow to get involved!⤵️ Camp ELSO Tx Texas Children in Nature Network Families In Nature Austin Youth River Watch

How well do you know the Influencer Trees of Texas?🌳 They may not have 100K IG followers– but some have lived over 1,000 YEARS😯 🌳Goose Island Oak: scientists estimate that this Gulf coast beauty is 1,100 years old. In the 1960s it was named the largest live oak tree in the U.S. From the Karankawas to the Comanche Indians to early explorers like Cabeza de Vaca– the big tree in Goose Island State Park has been visited by many legends of Texas history! 🌳Treaty Oak: close to 500 years old, this tree outside of Austin, TX was revered by the Tejas, Apache, and Comanche Indians. Legend has it that they brewed a “love tea” from the Treaty Oak’s leaves. If they drank the tea under a full moon, their lovers would be true forever❣️ 🌳The Cemetery Oak: This curiously shaped tree in Houston, TX has a trunk as wide as a Volkswagon and like a true Live Oak, its branches stretch further outward than upward and is at least 130 years old✔️ 🌳Kissing Oak: In his 1857 campaign trail, Senator Sam Houston received a hand-made Texas flag from the talented ladies of the San Marcos community. After his eloquent speech under the oak tree, Houston went into the crowd and KISSED each of the ladies who gave him the flag. After the incident, the tree became known as the Kissing Oak😘 With H-E-B #TreesForTexans we help communities plant native trees across the state! This month, 10 communities will be awarded $5,000 grants for the Fall planting season. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gCDYMSUj

🛑STOP RIGHT THERE! Pick a number from 1-11🤔 Got it? OK SWIPE TO THAT NUMBER! The number you landed on is your Conservation Fortune Cookie🥠 Share your fortune with your friends because it’s totally going to come true so long as you follow the steps– we believe in you! Happy National #FortuneCookieDay!

🔎If you’re looking for a guy in conservation, the first place to start is definitely our Partner Event calendar🤓 Each month, you can find events for nature lovers all across the state. You can filter your search by city, date, and event type. Here are a few upcoming events from our partners: 🎨Paint by Nature 📍Pasadena Armand Bayou Nature Center 07/20 🚶♂️Walk in Nature like a Poet 📍 San Antonio Phil Hardberger Park 7/27 🦁Dallas Zoo Dollar Day Presented by Whataburger 📍 Dallas Dallas Zoo through 8/4

🤔What if the solution to conserving Texas’ water was a matchmaking service for conservation projects funders? 💘 Sometimes the perfect match needs a little help for the stars to align– that’s where we come in!🪄 With #TxWAC (Texas Water Action Collaborative). We bring together business and funders with conservation projects to improve Texas water quality, quantity, and resilience! So far, we’ve activated over $4.7M in new investments 💸💧 Want to dive into the water action? Get more info and check out our latest matches here: https://lnkd.in/gyPuXrvw #HappyWaterWednesday 

🐍 "There's a snake in YOUR boot!" We're Texans. Of course we brag about everything being BIGGER & BETTER - including our snake population (over 100 different species & subspecies to be exact)! Check out these 4 ways snakes help our ecosystem: 🌾 Rodent control: Texas Rat Snakes feast on rodents, keeping their numbers in check and protecting our farms from furry invaders. 🐛Insect control: The Texas Garter Snake is your new best friend. Their diet includes garden pests like grasshoppers and slugs making them your secret weapon to growing prize-winning veg! 🌻 Food web: The Western Diamondback Rattlesnake's presence supports predator species like hawks and eagles. *cue the circle of life*🎶 🌳 Soil health: Burrowing snakes, like the Texas Blind Snake, aerate the soil and promote nutrient cycling - the natural recycling system of mineral nutrients. Let's give our slithery friends the respect they deserve! What’s your favorite (or least favorite) Texas snake?

🤔What do mountain lions, cougars, pumas, painters, catamounts & panthers have in common? They're ALL the same ELUSIVE animal! Mountain Lions have over 100 different names from Canada to the tip of South America. In Texas, cougars are found in the Trans-Pecos, south Texas brushlands, and parts of the Hill Country. If pumas make you jumpy, it’s because they can leap up to 15 feet high and 40 feet in distance! Olympic gold in the high jump, anyone?🥇 Catamounts need their space, often roaming large territories to hunt. They’re the ultimate introverts, preferring solo adventures, staying out of sight. 🦁 Unlike some big cats, mountain lions cannot roar. They communicate with whistles, screams, and purrs. Learn more about our #ConservationPartner, Texas Native Cats, a volunteer-run organization getting Texans acquainted with our majestic native cats here -> https://lnkd.in/gxG2fT4H

🗣️Stop talking trash about Texas bugs!🗣️ Walking sticks are GRACEFUL Tiger beetles are FASHIONABLE Bumblebees are CUDDLY Mosquitoes Roly polys are FLEXIBLE We know it FEELS as if Texas would be an even better place without MOSQUITOES but the truth is these flying vampires do more than annoy us at cookouts. 🦟Mosquitoes are important food sources for turtles, dragonflies, damselflies, bats, and birds. 😱One dragonfly can eat up to 100 mosquitoes a day. 🐢Baby turtles can eat over 500 mosquito larvae a day. 🦇A single bat can eat up to 1200 mosquitoes in one hour. It’s Be Nice to Bugs Day so if we have to say something nice to mosquitoes it’s: thanks for feeding much cuter animals 🙄

⚠️Trade offer: you invest $1 in conservation 🌱Nature pays you $4 back In 2019, Texas non-profits spent $639M in conservation investments yielding $2.8B in Return on Conservation™ value, delivering at least a 4:1 and up to 40:1 return per dollar invested! ROC™ value is the total return realized by investing in conservation, encompassing all variables– financial, human, and natural resources. We’ve known it all along: CONSERVATION IS GOOD BUSINESS🌱💸 This Wednesday, July 17 we’re hosting a free and open webinar to explore the details of the ROC™ report and discuss how Texas can use this data moving forward! We hope you can join us, tap the link to register: https://lnkd.in/gQhXzq8W