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This November, in central Texas, we have had a large population of various butterflies.  But, the one butterfly that was most common was the Queen.  The hordes started first on the Mexican Honeysuckle, then as the flowers of that bush went into decline, then others moved to the Bottlebrush flowers. The Queen looks a lot like the Monarch, but is smaller than the Monarch. Also on these bushes were a few Sulphurs and some Gulf Fritillarys

Two special events hit the calendar on the same day.  A music festival on the grounds of the county courthouse in Blanco was the first stop.  The plan was to have various musicians perform from 11 am to 3pm while festival goers perused the artists' booths.  Of the musicians we chose to hear Blanco's own Larry Natwick, a jazz pianist and his sidekick base viol player.  One humorous bit was when we asked them if they did any of Brubecks stuff, they were hesitant but then announced they would play Take the A Train, and went on to say that the Canadians call it Take the Train, eh?. Well, here's a video clip: We asked if they had any CD's of their music, and he reached in his dufflebag and handed us one, and said you may have this one.  It was of an earlier time when the pianist was part of a quartet. We stayed about an hour as planned.  It was chilly and we were glad to get back in the car where it was warmer.  Then, it was a turkey (LO) sa...

Cats don't travel all that well, but this cat did pretty well, especially after we told her that it was either this three day trip to Alpine, Texas or to stay in the cat hotel for those three days. So, having made her choice, we departed with her in the cage---a screened enclosure about 3 feet cubed.  For the first 30 miles, a lot of complaining, but then all was quiet.  She had burrowed under the foam mat and was hiding from this reality of travel. In Del Rio, we opened the cage door and she then opted to settle into the foot well of the back seat area.  We often were concerned with her jumping out of the car when we stopped for gas and whatnot, but the opposite was true--it was hard to get her to leave the car. The first night in a motel (Quality Inn in Alpine ---good place and good for pets) was a hoot.  We carried the cage up to the room on the second floor and then opened it.  She cautiously stepped out and then spent the next hour investigating every no...

We usually try to catch this festival of potters in Gruene, as it has some high quality potters showing their creations. Roger Allen's potters from the Chicken Farm Studio are usually present and we always enjoy talking with them. We have a few of their plates already, so we were not planning on buying anything more from them, but then dang, they had a new version of their decorative plate, this time a departure from the Moonwalker theme.  So we bought it: Here is a photo of the scene in a general area of the show.  We got there at the opening minute, so there were not a lot of people milling around (and getting in our way). An older fellow is usually at the show, and doing demonstrations of firing a kiln.  I liked his homemade gas-fired kiln and so this is a photo of it.  The shell is just steel angle iron and the ceramic insulation comes from distribution international.  All the propane equipment comes from Tractor Supply. Ron Boling is...

One gets so used to driving in the proximity of other cars that it becomes second nature. In order to keep safety up front, one has to be reminded of the laws for traffic, your own driving habits, and of course the "other guy". A good way to do  that is to get a dash camera---and then play it back after a trip. Seeing how you drive, and the presence of other cars is a stark reminder of the risks to be managed in driving a car.

We had never been to the Lutheran Church picnic in Yoakum until this year.  We were glad we did go this far for lunch as it was a different experience.  First off, it was in the Community Center, the building where the Tourist Bureau has its welcoming office. The meal was not as good as some of the other picnics.  It consisted of boiled potatoes, stew (again, just meat, no vegetables), sausage, sauerkraut, and green beans. Hey, but we missed the canned peaches. It was serve yourself, but that was no risky. Except for the sausage, everything was awash in liquid, the liquid in which it was prepared on the stove.  Sausage was not your typical German nor Czech style, more like HEB. There was a band playing throughout the mealtime, and it played only religious songs---something we never experienced before. We looked around the town for a bit, but being Sunday, it was pretty much shut down.  We came home through Shiner, and there, they were having some sort of...

Dee has begun a new blog for day trip records and so these day trips that once were on this blog will only be mentioned with something very special.  It can be found at awayfortheday .blogspot.com.

We have missed quite a few of the church picnics this year for one reason or another, but we did go to the Moulton picnic.  As recalled, this is one church picnic that we have never attended, so it was a good treat to go to this one. N sent us a news release from the Weimar paper that indicated the picnic (food) would begin at 10:30, so we decided to aim for that time, and we did, arriving at about 10:45. Parking was easy at the KC hall grounds, and we walked right on into the serving line.  Food consisted of beef stew (sans vegetables) fried chicken, the ever present green beans, sauerkraut, cooked potatoes, (on the variety of german potato salad, but not quite-no vinegar), tea, and bread.  Got it all for $9.  Oh, and tea and dessert too. By the time we were finished with our meal, the hall was pretty much filled up as lots of people arrived from having finished their church services in the adjoining communities. Inside the hall, besides all the seati...

Almost a year ago to the day, Leopard Frog has taken up residence in the water tub underneath the front window.  I noted that on August 3rd it showed up, and now its August 7th and it has been here several days.   How they come out of the dryness of the surrounding area and find this water tub which surface is a foot or more above ground level, we do not know. Then, as was the case last year, it will sit on the rim, overlooking the yard, then disappear for a day, but then finds its way back to the comfort of the water. What a deal!

We always remember Llano as a neat small town, and so we ventured off to renew our acquaintance with the town. We arrived just in time for lunch (as always planned) and so we chose Cooper's Barbeque as the place to dine, er, have lunch. It was okay, but most of its fame comes from the style, not from the value of the food served.  One places an order for meat at the grill, outside the building, at the entrance way.  The meat is passed on into the eating area where you can choose side dishes.  We opted for half chicken and enough brisket for a make-it-yourself sandwich, plus one serving of slaw, one serving of potato salad and one serving of peach cobbler.  The beans, pickles, and onion rings are no charge.  We opted for water to drink.  The tab turned out to be $30.73.   The big disappointment was the brisket.  There was hardly enough for one sandwich as so much of it was fat that counted in the weighing and pricing.  So, it turned out ...

Gee, we have not been in Yoakum for some time, so we decided to make the trip a few days ago.  The weather was iffy, but we decided to go anyway. We arrived in Yoakum about 11 am, just in time to hunt for the best café.  Earlier, we picked H & H Café, not knowing that we had been there before, some years ago.  Well, it looked just the same.  We had a smoked meat sandwich and sat for awhile and enjoyed watching the locals come in for lunch.  It turned out to be the best place in town, confirmed by the many who chose to have lunch there. Then we found the tourist bureau and chatted with the young lady who was staffing the place for the day.  She had lots of good answers for all our questions, like where is the local gun shop, and where might we buy a good cup of coffee. We chatted about a lot of topics, but one caught my ear.  Nearby is a town spelled Hochheim.  She says the local pronunciation is Ho heim.  Obviously a german...

This is a continuation of the trip to McDade, because in the McDade Museum, we asked if there were any one room school buildings still standing, and she said yes, at Knobb Springs.  We had our county map book with us so found Knobb Springs, but we were a bit uncertain how to get there as it was in the back of the beyond. But, we did find it. At the last bend in the road there was a church, fairly new, and this old school building.  Just as we pulled in to the big spacious yard (no ditches, no curbs just a field well mowed) a man came by and I flagged him.  He stopped, and we asked him if this was the old school building.  He said "yes" and then said "maybe it is open, it usually is". Here's the story that was put on the Carl School site;  you can read all about it here: carlschool.wordpress.com

McDade you say, where is that? Well its on the edge of Bastrop and Lee counties and was once a thriving agricultural center, mainly for the growing of watermelons.  It is on a spur railroad, now not in operation.  The call for this trip was a parade celebrating watermelon days, a barbeque lunch, a car show, and later on a race of lawnmowers around a circular track. Off the agenda, but on our agenda was the historical museum.  It was rustic, but it was good. We spent about an hour there. One noted old sign was on the wall listing all the killings that occurred over the years.  Those who lived were called the Yegua Notch Cutters.  Yegua is a creek that runs through the area. (note that Print Olive was the notch cutter for awhile, then he was the notch) The parade had a few floats and lotsa horses.  Two horses had the smallest of riders. This one a little cowgirl, the next one a little cowboy. (back in the line a bit) Stockdales float was the ...

Go to highway 304 north from the Interstate highway, turn right onto BuckBend Road, then go left on another county road, then a sharp right turn (obviously following section lines) then another mile or so, then left on another county road and after some 15  miles of this in an area near the Caldwell County line, we found the Criss Ranch. Now is the time to ask:  Why to the Criss Ranch? We saw an ad for an estate sale on the web.  It was complete with pictures of what was for sale.  We saw nothing we needed except there was so much stuff on this old farm that we had to go investigate. We know what its like to still own most of what you have acquired over the years, but we are working the pile down to something manageable.  But here is a ranch whose occupants kept everything they ever acquired or so it seems.  The occupants had been an older man and lady, the man had died some years ago and the woman, most recent age of 82 died just recently. There were ...

The cat became rather sick with vomiting and the whatnot.  Investigation turns up the following:  The night before, Dee noted a tree frog on the wall in the bathroom, too high up to get down by herself.  So, to keep the frog contained she shut the door of the bathroom for the night.  Next morning, the cat was very sick and the frog was nowhere to be seen. Poked through the vomit and there were the remains of the frog.  Now, we all know that some toads, maybe some frogs, are toxic.  Well, this one was for sure. Took about three days to recover.  All is okay now, and, the cat has encountered yet another life experience.

Its now mid June, and some of the crops (generous term) are starting to come in.  Picked a bunch of tomatoes today, maybe 10 pounds.  Several varieties, but the Tycoon tomatoes are a bit of a disappointment.  They seem to sunburn much more easily that any of the others.  This new variety supposedly sets the blossom better in hot weather, but the grower did not say anything about sunburning.  Early Girl was truly the first to produce fruit, having had the first tomato now for at least 3 weeks. Onions planted for bulb onions are getting eaten so fast as green onions, there wont be any to mature into bulb onions. Only planted three hills of potatoes (rather than throw away bought potatoes that were too far gone to eat).  These three hills produced nicely.  Got nearly 15 spuds back from three seeds.  In my younger days, we were always thrilled to get production that returned at least one potatoe more than the seed spent.  (Our soil then was po...

The book we are writing, The History of Carl School is nearly finished.  Its a compilation of historical information on Carl School, a one-room school we both attended during elementary grades.  It has 260 pages, and nearly 31000 words.  It might even get published one of these days.

Amber has more than moved in, she has taken over the rule of the house.  I doubt if she knows her real name, probably because she has so many nicknames.  Some of which are:  Freaky, Miss Flopsy, Showcat, and Chirper.   Chirper comes from the noises she makes, akin to barking, when she is asleep. Anyway, a good cat.   But, not yet trained to go to the mailbox and get the paper each morning. However, she has developed a talent for hunting scorpions, those nasty bugs we find here in central Texas.  On these hardwood floors, when she spots a scorpion, she bedevils it with her front paw all the while mewing as if to call for help.  We know the sound by now, it means "here is another one for you to kill, as I don't want to touch it".  After it is dispatched, she struts around in a victorious manner.

Taylor is not too far away for a one day exploring trip---besides, they advertised a festival of sorts to bring the likes of us to their town. So, we went to Taylor, choosing not to go through Austin to get to Taylor, we took the roads around Austin, going past the airport, and through Manor and up into Taylor.  Taylor is a railroad town for sure, with lots of track running east/west, in and out of Austin. First things first, we checked on a place to eat after parking in town, only a half block from all the "goings-on". Wouldn't you know it, there was a barbeque joint not more than an easy walk away. The name of the place escapes me for now, but at 11 am it was already getting busy.  Ordered a pork sandwich and a beef sandwich, plus three pork rib bones to sample (big sample).  Cost came to about 30 dollars, which is expensive for barbeque. The taste was good, but a bit too hot, even without any sauce.  Seems as if it was Mexican styled with regard to spices. ...

"When we were young" (yup, you've heard that phase before) we were poor but nobody told us we were poor, we did not receive any assistance. As it turned out , our character thereby benefitted from the independence. we, as kids, managed our own little society by ourselves with no intervention, not only in the school yard, but on the softball field as well.  We thereby built a rather "thick skin" to deal with the realities of life that we surely would encounter. No snowflake us.  And, complaining to our parents about nearly anything did not bring help, in fact complaining usually brought the risk of more to complain about.

Lets see now, Amber must be up to about Cat Life No.5.  In the time since the last post, she has been acculturated to the inside of the house---that took all of an hour before she took over----and has made it clear when she is hungry and sleeps in the library closet room.  More recently we let her outdoors for a romp and that's what gets interesting.  When first let out onto the concrete of the breezeway, she squirrels around on the concrete making sure that she has marked the area good, letting any nighttime visitors know that she is home.  After a few rolls on the concrete, she heads for the wooded area to the front of the house.  Its pretty dense there and she creeps along stealth fashion, looking for whatever. Then, she disappears from sight and sound.   After about an hour, she can be spotted up in the top of a large live oak tree, perhaps 20 feet above the ground.  Sometimes she mews when up that high, but we yell at her that we are not abo...