- ANNOUNCER: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure: it's what we share.

- NARRATOR: Coming up on Texas Parks and Wildlife... - We're a permaculture site and we practice ecological gardening.

- You know it just evolved where the trees attracted more birds and then I learned more and learned about the Lucifer's.

- It just grows so thick and it'll grow a couple of feet every year and just take over the banks.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: Texas Parks and Wildlife, a television series for all outdoors.

[upbeat guitar music] - ANGELINA: Well, I grew up in Austin and had no idea this was here.

I discovered the Food Forest a few years ago, and it's really just a hidden gem.

It's right off of 35.

[car horns] So it's wild that you can see a huge massive highway and then steps away, be in this permaculture food forest garden that's just full of plants, full of flowers, full of food.

And so it's really just wonderful that this place exists and it's always here for you.

[laughter] - KAREN: What we're doing here is we're connecting with nature, which is really good for your mental health.

So I'm glad you're all here.

We're a permaculture site, and what that means is we practice ecological gardening.

The critical words are balance, connection and biodiversity.

[bee buzzing] - JENNA: Inhale to reach.

I just feel energized when I come here.

- Exhale.

So Festival Beach Food Forest is here to grow edible landscapes on public parkland that nourish, educate and inspire the community.

- VOLUNTEER: So pretty.

Is that native?

- KAREN: Yeah.

- VOLUNTEER: Oh, wow.

- JENNA: Today is our monthly second Saturday workday, so this is our biggest workday of every month.

- VOLUNTEER: Hey, can we get some more mulch over here?

- ANGELINA: All the ground cover and fruit trees that you're seeing were planted and cultivated by volunteers.

[laughter] - KAREN: We're planting trees.

- VOLUNTEER: Nice.

- I'm a renter, so I don't have access to land that I can keep coming back to and interact with.

So for me, it's really fun to be able to come back to this space again and again and again.

- VOLUNTEER: In it goes.

Oh yeah, flatten it.

Pat, pat.

- CHILD: I like planting trees more.

- KAREN: People in the city need this.

It's definitely possible to do these kind of projects in the city.

[bike rings bell] [birds chirping] Like 90% of our plants are perennial.

We plant as many fruit and nut trees as possible.

We also have berry bushes and lots and lots of medicinal herbs and culinary herbs.

This is Agarita.

These red berries are actually quite delicious.

This is Goldenrod.

This is like one of the major pollinators that we have.

This is Moringa.

It's so full of nutrition.

It's just off the charts.

So we have all these beans growing.

Three sisters is beans, squash and corn.

Lots of connections.

Everything's connected.

Elderberry is so nice.

The berries are really good for colds and flus, but it's also just an immunity booster.

So we take care of the plants and then they are taking care of us.

- And no outside organic matter.

- Oh.

- It was very, very challenging.

- Yeah.

People wanna be a part of this shift.

Mimicking nature, harmonizing with nature, it's great.

This is a ditch that's filled with mulch.

This is a little hill.

This is the berm, and then we immediately planted it with a cover crop.

There's a hill and then a ditch, and the ditch is filled with mulch about three feet deep, and that holds water in the landscape.

Permaculture tries to use resources on the site, and one of the most important resources is of course, water.

[water spraying] - ANGELINA: For the most part, that land design is capturing water and storing it and sequestering it for the plants to use as they need it.

And that's something that's really special, especially as we're moving into hotter and hotter summers, to have something that's a bit more self-sustaining.

[gentle music] - KAREN: This is beautiful.

So the trees are going in and nitrogen fixers are going in here.

What that means is the roots go down deep and they bring up the minerals and nutrients from the sub soil so that all the other plants can use it.

They have nice deep roots.

It's kind of amazing that this is actually happening in our own little space.

You know, what can we do?

We can do this.

There's something you can do locally.

It feels really good.

- JENNA: It just really brings so much joy to me because that's ultimately our goal, that what is grown here is appreciated and utilized by the community.

We always invite all of our guests and volunteers to bring their families to enjoy a picnic.

If people are utilizing this resource, then we've really done what we came here to do.

[drumming] - ANGELINA: One thing that really excites me about the Food Forest is its potential to be a source of inspiration.

So we can have food forests on public land everywhere.

[gentle music] [piano music] - JAMIE CREACY: Bastrop State Park is a place that connects people to the land.

[piano music] - MADALYN MILLER: Smelling the pine trees and hearing the pine needles just rubbing against each other when the wind blows, it's just so wonderful and it takes me back to childhood.

- GIRL: Hi Joey!

[piano music] - MADALYN: You also get a really awesome view of how a park bounces back and how nature bounces back after fire.

- JAMIE: There's a story here and it's a really special story that is both deep-rooted and long-lasting.

[piano music] [old time music] - NARRATOR: During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps came to Bastrop to create a new state park.

- FILM NARRATOR: Historic Bastrop, third oldest settlement in Texas is importantly represented in the development of a lone star state park system.

- JAMIE: One of the best features here is our historic Civilian Conservation Corps cabins.

The boys that built them honed the stone and the wood right here from our landscape.

During one of the most difficult times in our nation's history, young men came here to build Bastrop State Park.

They built the very essence of what it is today.

[old time music] We're set amongst the Lost Pines of Texas which is the westernmost stand of loblolly pines in the United States.

There's a lot of different thoughts about why the Lost Pines are lost, but it simply means that we're a disjunct population of loblolly pines from that eastern pine stand in Texas.

[birds singing] We have a beautiful mosaic of loblolly pine trees, oaks and savannah grasses.

[fire siren] - NARRATOR: In 2011, a devastating fire tore through Bastrop.

The fire dramatically altered Bastrop's landscape, but park visitors can now see a new forest rising from the ashes.

- JAMIE: For those who know and love the Lost Pines, you're still going to find your majestic 80-foot pine trees that rustle in the wind, but today you're also going to find so much regrowth in the forest.

Any time someone comes to the park they're going to see new grasses, new flowers, new shrubs popping up.

And they're going to get to, over time, see the change and regrowth in this forest, which is truly a unique experience.

Here at Bastrop State Park, we have so many great family things for people to do.

Everything from camping... - KID: Yeah!

- JAMIE: Staying in one of our beautiful historic CCC cabins, using our trail system... [acoustic guitar music] - MADALYN: So basically what we're doing today is plein-air painting which means painting in the outdoors.

We've got so much beauty here, but sometimes it's hard to slow down and take it all in whenever you're running and gunning.

This is your creation!

You'll get to take a little bit of nature home with you in that painting and remember Bastrop State Park.

- CAMPER: This stuff is good!

- This is my first campout.

Well, I wouldn't say first, but first outside campout.

- CAMPER: That's some pretty good stuff.

- BRANDON: Sitting around, playing with friends, you get to see nature and its fine arts.

[acoustic guitar music] I can already tell this tree is going to grow tons of pine cones.

It's like we lose teeth, but these lose pine needles.

[acoustic guitar music] - NARRATOR: Whether you're a history buff, a weekend warrior, or looking to reconnect with nature, Bastrop State Park is an ideal place to discover the hidden treasures of the Lost Pines.

- MADALYN: What better thing to bring people together than the outdoors.

- JAMIE: You can come and enjoy a peaceful weekend with the trees all around and overhead and just sit back and relax.

[acoustic guitar music] [campfire crackles] - CAMPER: No guys, let's do spooky stories.

We love Bastrop!

[crickets chirping] [light wind] - CAROLYN: We're in Brewster County Texas, and we're in the southern part of it.

Nearly adjacent to Big Bend National Park.

This is a curved-billed thrasher.

And what's interesting is they're not known to nest in nesting boxes but they do here.

Well I've got boxes up all over the place.

That just comes with having a bird sanctuary I guess.

[generator starts] - NARRATOR: Meet Carolyn Ohl-Johnson.

This birder loves her water.

- CAROLYN: I'm going to pump some water into a concrete tank where it'll last a lot longer.

[water splashing] - NARRATOR: She needs all this water for the ponds, and trees... and birds.

- CAROLYN: There's a blue grosbeak.

- NARRATOR: You see, this part of West Texas is a dry, prickly desert, that doesn't get much water.

But there's plenty here at the Christmas Mountains Oasis.

[playful acoustic music] Carolyn and her late husband Sherwood started building this oasis in the '90s.

- And I told him how we could put in some diversion dams, and he just hopped right on that without greasing his equipment, the same day!

And so we started out with one tank that wasn't nearly big enough.

- NARRATOR: They ended up with three dams... and five water tanks.

Almost 20 years later, and here we are!

- CAROLYN: It's a refuge for birds, butterflies.

[dragonfly flutters] Just give them a little dry seed.

- She's built this oasis out of gravel and creosote, and put in some wetlands to catch rainwater, the birds also use the water, and she's created truly an oasis out in the desert.

- Oh, here's a black-throated sparrow just came in to the feeder, he sticks his little head in there.

I can be sitting here, just looking at the same old stuff, and bet money that nothing interesting's going to come along.

And there, all of a sudden, oh my gosh, there's a lifer!

But it won't happen if I'm not sitting here looking, so what do you do!

You sure don't get much work done, that's for sure.

- NARRATOR: Plenty of work's been done here as well.

Deep in the Chihuahuan desert near Presidio, in the driest ecoregion of Texas is the B.J.

Bishop Wetlands, a river wetland ecosystem.

A habitat that's pretty much dried up round these parts.

- Originally, back when the Rio Grande was still healthy with good flows, you had ebb and flows that created estuaries like this.

Well, those no longer really exist.

And so we had an opportunity here working with the city to put this in and create something unique.

- NARRATOR: Terry allows the city of Presidio to discharge its treated wastewater here.

[birds chirp] And the people of Presidio get their first ever birding wetland.

- PATT SIMS: Yeah those black, those are the white-faced ibis.

- As farmland turned into wetland, I never would have thought it could do this.

This was an amazing, creative idea.

And in a year and a half, it has just really increased the numbers and species of birds that we're being able to see here!

- If you look over here, right on that vegetation there, there's some killdee working the uh, the water there, you'll see them moving their feet, and they're eating the bugs that come scurrying out of that!

Must be great for killdee, because I have never seen so many in one place here in the Presidio valley.

- NARRATOR: This man-made wetland is a win-win, for the birders and the birds.

- PATT: I am surprised at how many species have cashed in on this.

I really am and the numbers, the birds know it's here, so they're coming in!

- DENNIS: And to have one here, have one in Presidio, and to have it be such an integral part of all the environment here is pretty unique, and it's pretty awesome!

- ELLEN WEINACHT: We are at the Sandia Wetlands, on the west side of Balmorhea.

[upbeat music] And we're happy for anybody to come!

- RICH KOSTECKE: A bunch of teal flying right there.

- NARRATOR: Ellen Weinacht's place is another birding oasis in the desert.

[water trickles] Sandia Springs flows through her land and she decided to set up her own birding wetland.

- You see the killdeer moving, there's at least three of them in there.

- We have a water right on that spring, and it just made sense to use it to make a pond!

Really been a lot, been a lot of fun!

[blue-winged teal flush] - We are in the desert, and water is very limited, so these little patches, they may not seem like much.

But the birds do find them and they can get really heavy use!

- CLIFF: You wouldn't believe what's flying over the desert until you create the gas station, the stopover sight for these birds to refuel.

[green heron calls] - ELLEN: Would you say try something different at each pond.

- Yes absolutely, something different in each pond would be good!

Hey, hey look at that!

What is that!

That's a peregrine!

No, it's a prairie falcon.

He would eat ducks!

- ELLEN: Really, he is that big!

- Oh yeah, he would definitely take a blue-winged teal.

Creating these wetlands out in the desert are a magnet for wildlife.

I mean every critter needs water!

- ELLEN: So, thanks for coming.

- CLIFF: And so to bring water, open water to the desert is fantastic.

[light wind] - NARRATOR: Back at Christmas Mountains Oasis, Carolyn is getting her place ready for a special guest.

- CAROLYN: You know it just evolved, where the trees attracted more birds.

And then you flip them real quick.

And then I learned more and learned about the lucifers, and how rare they were and special they were.

If everybody's real still they'll come into the feeder!

- NARRATOR: Carolyn's oasis is home to one of the rarest hummingbirds in the United States.

- CAROLYN: Basically, this is lucifer central.

- CLIFF: The lucifer hummingbird has a very tiny global range in Mexico.

It just peaks into a little part of Texas right here.

And he's very special, because if you want to see that bird in the U.S., you need to come here!

He's sitting right there, near the tip top of that shrub in the background.

- BIRDER: Okay, on the top of that tree right there!

- CAROLYN: He's back on that perch there, if you can get that oughta be a-- ooops!

You know, when I originally did it, it was only for my enjoyment, but it didn't take long for me to realize that I had to share it!

- BARBARA PANKRATZ: It just sat down!

Oh my goodness!

- CLIFF: The male has a very long beautiful purple magenta gorget, it has a fairly long and drooped bill!

- BARBARA: That's the lucifer!

That's a lifer for me!

- Well it is for me too!

[laughing] - BARBARA: This is the most amazing place!

Beautiful!

It truly is an oasis in the middle of the desert!

It's a daunting task to have come out here and to create such a haven, thankfully she did!

- It's fantastic to see landowners doing this, and bringing back this wetland habitat out in the Chihuahuan desert.

- NARRATOR: For Carolyn, she's happy to be behind the scenes.

So the lucifer can shine!

And folks will continue to enjoy her West Texas wonder.

- CAROLYN: To me, this place is wonderful and special, and I know it won't be here forever!

You just can't not share it with people that love it, that's to me what life is all about!

[wind rustling leaves] [dramatic music] - ANGELA: Nothing lives in there.

You don't get native birds in there.

It just grows so thick.

It's a thicket, and you just can't get through it.

- NARRATOR: Angela England is a warrior against a mighty foe.

- Start losing all of the native biodiversity in those areas and it'll grow a couple feet every year and just take over the banks.

- MAN: Really cool for the Blanco.

- ANGELA: It's nice.

- NARRATOR: Angela is a Conservation Biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Her enemy is an invasive species called Arundo, or giant reed, or giant cane, or Carrizo cane or Georgia cane.

Lots of different names, but it is one giant pain.

- It is a non-native grass, grows over 20 feet tall, and once it gets into a wet area, whether it's on the creek or on the river banks, or in a ditch, it can grow and crowd out all the native vegetation.

- NARRATOR: Because 95% of the land in Texas is privately owned, Texas Parks and Wildlife is making a push for landowners to get involved in Arundo eradication.

- ANGELA: At this point, our program for the Healthy Creeks Initiative has about 400 landowners across a seven-county area.

- NARRATOR: And that's key because Angela's army is mighty but small.

- RYAN: We're only a team of four.

Yeah, well, with two seasonal interns.

We've managed to get it done year over year.

- NARRATOR: Ryan McGillicuddy is the watershed conservation team leader.

Together with those two interns, he maps the Arundo, which is the first step in its hopeful demise.

- RYAN: We'll use our handheld GIS GPS devices and we'll locate those plants and we'll map the size and location of them.

And what that does is it allows our subcontractors to come back and find those plants later in the season and apply a treatment to them.

- ANGELA: It's spot treatments.

They use as little as we can get away with and as dilute as we can get away with, and we're always trying to fine tune that to make sure we're not putting more herbicide on the landscape than we need to.

We can't mow it and, and chipper shred it because every little fragment can create a whole new plant.

- RYAN: It's an extremely intricate involved process.

- ANGELA: I'm proud of this project and the work that we're doing.

It can be a little frustrating when we have to keep coming back after that one or two percent, but it's working.

[upbeat music] - NARRATOR: To celebrate 40 years of our television series, we are taking a trip back in time to look at some of our earliest episodes.

♪ ♪ [bike tires rumble] [splash] - NARRATOR: Mountain biking is a new sport, but one that is growing rapidly.

In case you don't know, mountain bikes are those rugged-looking bicycles with fat tires and upright handlebars that you see people riding around city streets.

They've become very popular with students, commuters, and people who just like to hit the hike-and-bike trail for a leisurely Sunday ride.

Ironically, the majority of these bikes designed for off-road use rarely get far from the pavement.

- I would say the majority are being ridden on city streets and hike and bike trails, because it's easy to ride, it's easy to maintain.

You don't have the flat problems, and it's just a different experience in riding bicycles.

The mountain bikes are what everybody wants.

It's what looks cool.

They have caused a resurgence in bicycles, a new interest on the part of most consumers.

They can jump on a mountain bike and feel like a kid again.

[upbeat music] [tires on road] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [tires on road] [bike clicking] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [tires on road] [bike clicking] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] This series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure: it's what we share.