Happy New Year!
Welcome to this issue of Stumped by Nature, where we notice nature lurking just beyond our screens, curate a list of outside-y events in Austin, and build community with other folks in the thick of the startup ecosystem.
In this week’s issue:
🪵 Cedar
🌤️ Upcoming outdoors events
❄️ Seasonal event deluge
Let’s dig in!
-Nicole
PS There’s a community of your Austin peers tackling the 1000 Hours Outside challenge this year. Come join us! Sign up here.
NATURE SPOTLIGHT
If you have capacity to be reading this, I assume you’re not tending to a daily influx of winged creatures from a lover/nemesis. We’ll celebrate by thinking about trees together.
There’s a special gift that Austin bestows this time of year, and it comes in the form of an additional variable for the root cause of your suffering.
Is it a cold? The flu? Covid? Post-holiday existential dread?
Or is it cedar.
Our neighbor, cedar, is on a mission to exponentially multiply/conquer the landscape, and it’s dusting the region with its potency.
Misnomer Alert
We’ve collectively butchered another nature naming convention here.
Cedar is a tree, but there are zero native true cedars in North America. True cedars are native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Himalayas. This is a buffalo/bison situation all over again, with similar roots in settlers not inviting any botanists to the party, incorrectly labeling something, and the nickname sticking so hard that there’s a place named Cedar Park.
The true identity of what we refer to in Texas as cedar: Ashe juniper, aka mountain cedar, aka the source of your allergic woes.
A cedar by any other name would make you sneeze just as hard
From this point forward, we’re going to pretend like the real cedar doesn’t exist, and we’re going to call Ashe juniper whatever variant of cedar we feel like, because rules are an illusion.
Cedar’s Redeeming Qualities
Lucky us, there are some pleasant features of this tree:
Wood is rot-, insect-, and fungus-resistant, making it a useful building material, especially as fence posts and outdoor structures
The insect-resistance is because of aromatic compounds in the juniper wood and berries, protecting linens in cedar chests across the domestic landscape
Despite repelling insects, juniper berries seem to attract some humans. Juniper berries are the flavor and aroma backbone of the gin industry. (For accuracy’s sake/your next trivia night, Juniperus communis is the commercial gin berry of choice, but Ashe juniper has chemically similar compounds.)
A+ food source for wildlife, especially cedar waxwings, mockingbirds, coyotes, foxes, and deer
Evergreen provides winter wind protection and nesting habitats
Early on the scene of open fields. Ashe juniper can thrive in less than ideal soils, helping stabilize the soil, prevent erosion, and act as a succession bridge to help oaks become established
Thanks to its resilience in harsh environments, Ashe juniper do the necessary work of storing carbon in regions where other trees can’t hang
Fun fact: the cedar planks you use to grill your fatty/flaky fish are not Ashe juniper, which would be too intensely piney for our collective salmon desires. This is another moment to side eye our settler ancestors for using “cedar” as a catch-all word for unfamiliar trees.
Trivia note: cedar planks for grilling usually come from a Western red cedar,Thuja plicata, which is a relative of a cypress tree.
Cedar fence tucked away in Hill Country, holding me back from pillaging a plant nursery
Mo pollen mo problems
Unlucky us, regional junipers are in sync for a pollen spread, and we reap the outcomes of that nature as one of the top 50 cities for worst seasonal allergies. Honestly, I thought we’d be higher on the list, but it turns out there are a lot of places to suffer.
While Ashe juniper is not particularly allergenic, the sheer quantity of pollen released makes for an immune system feat of strength.
Unlike most seasonal allergies, cedar fever peaks in winter. After a cold front, male junipers open their pollen cones in unison. On dry, windy days, they spill all the juicy details, and emote so hard it can look like smoke is radiating from the canopy. Note that only male junipers produce pollen. The female trees make berry-like cones to receive.
Historically, male junipers were favorited in landscaping because they don’t drop berries, and here we are with maximized human misery due to an aesthetic choice.
Meteorologist Avery Tomasco delivering the real scoop
Common cedar fever symptoms:
Nasal congestion and runny nose
Sore throat
Fatigue
Sinus pressure
Watery or itchy eyes
Low-grade fever
Reduced sense of smell
Not medical advice, but the internet says if your snot runs clear, an allergy is the likely culprit.
A final thought on cedar
My mountain biking pals say when they zip around a corner, if they MUST have a tree canopy encounter, Ashe juniper is their top choice to hit at speed. The scale foliage is relatively pleasant to brush through, and the little burst of pollen is free fashion.
Extremely low on the list: cornering a trail to find something more skeletal, like Live Oak limbs. Or riding in Big Bend State Park and brushing an ocotillo. Ocotillo bite back.
IN THE ATX WRITING WORLD
Bison, revisited
When I told the right person I liked writing and nature, I was invited to climb into an unmarked van at sunrise to go watch a bison die.
One outcome of that day: this field guide woven from multiple perspectives—a food writer, a business writer, a literary writer, a nature photographer, and a scientist.
I contributed this essay.
You should check it out.
The connective tissue behind our bison quest and compilation: Zac Solomon, writer, community builder, and creator of ATX Writing Club. Directly related: the professional writing community in Austin is thriving.
Speaking of the power of community…
This newsletter exists, in part, because I subscribe to The Austin Business Review. Ethan Brooks writes this weekly events roundup, and it was through his newsletter that I found ATX Writing Club’s free fall 2025 writing session.
More than 200 writers descended on Cosmic Saltillo that morning, and it was one of those rare, beautiful moments of finding the exact thing you didn’t know you’d been looking for. Sitting at a picnic table with a stack of full notebooks to harvest + the ambient vibes of other writers, I locked in on newsletter as my format, with nature as a loose vehicle for a consistent writing practice. And I applied for ATX Writing Club membership so I could dedicate focused writing time in the company of great people.
Because I know I thrive with accountability and mentorship, joining Ethan’s newsletter writing fall cohort was also an easy decision. I already trusted his work—The Austin Business Review reliably helps me find the rooms I want to be in professionally in my Venture Capital world. Through the course, Ethan’s instruction added the right amount of structure to get my external-audience writing life rolling. And here we are.
His next newsletter cohort starts this weekend. Details exist here, and the code YAUPON will get you pre-sale pricing. You’re welcome.
Inks (with April flowers and a nature enthusiast)
FIRST DAY HIKES
Test your cedar capacity and get a start on your 1000 hours of the year with a hike today! Within spitting distance, and worth a spontaneous day trip:
🥾 Bastrop This one is at 9:30am, and is birding on a paved trail with a ranger
🥾 Buescher Your well-behaved dog can earn a B.A.R.K. Ranger certificate for their happy hiking at 1:00pm
🥾 Inks Lake The Devil’s Waterhole trailhead is the place to start
🥾 Lockhart See which critters come out after dark with this guided evening hike
🥾 McKinney Falls Self-guided hikes. For folks looking for a Fun Run, 2.8 miles await at 9:30am. (This State Park is right in Austin, near the airport!)
🥾 Pedernales Falls At 3:00pm, there’s a guided fossil hike. 👀
UPCOMING EVENTS
🗓️ January 1: Polar Bear Splash at Barton Springs
🗓️ January 2: The Art House- Open House: Saplings Studio is such a treat for kids as young as 18 months old (and was a direct hit for my daughter’s 5th birthday party).
🗓️ January 3: Open Canopy: Young artists can grow into adult artists
🗓️ January 3: Tree recycling at Zilker
🗓️ January 3: Ghost Tour: For when the spooky podcasts aren’t enough
🗓️ January 3: The Board Walks Perfect opportunity for steps, connection, and outside time
🗓️ Through January 4: Ice Rodeo at Four Seasons
🗓️ Through January 4: Peppermint Parkway at COTA
🗓️ Through January 4: Volente Lights on the Lake
🗓️ January 11: Saturn and Star Clusters viewing at Reimers Observatory (these spots fill quickly!)
🗓️ Through January 19: Bee Cave on Ice
🗓️ January 20: Close the Loop This is the admin night I host. Come whittle away your to do list in good company.
🗓️ Through February 1: Fortlandia
LOCAL FARMERS’ MARKETS
👩🌾 Arboretum Food & Artisan Market Saturdays 11-3
👩🌾 Barton Creek Farmers Market Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 Lakeline Farmers Market Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 SFC Farmers’ Market Downtown Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 SFC Farmers’ Market Sunset Valley Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 Texas Farmers’ Market at Bell Saturdays 9am-1pm
👩🌾 Texas Farmers’ Market at Mueller Sundays 10am-2pm
That’s all for this week!
In the meantime, I hope any cedar sneezes you have are fully satisfying.
-Nicole
OPTIONAL SIDE QUESTS
🪵 What’s this like for you? Email with your perspective.
🪵 Who should I collaborate with? Email with your recs!
🪵 Do you need to commission a writer? I’m happy to discuss projects that might make me cry in public/funnel my experiential/existential dread into essays like this one.
🪵 Is this newsletter not your vibe? Forward it to your enemies to make them suffer too.
💰It’s safe to assume there are affiliate links, and I’ll monetarily benefit from any purchases you make. Hooray, capitalism! So far, this newsletter has generated $3.46 of cold hard cash. 💸