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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 a retired professor from

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 fall festival for a particul