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You may recall the museum display of some 2000 reamers, or "juicers" as we always called them---the kitchen device that you use to squeeze the juice from a half of an orange..  That display is enough to draw one to this museum, but we read more recently that the museum is the new owner of a vast collection of hand painted Japanese porcelain cups, saucers and tea pots. So, a trip to Cuero on the 25th of March,  but first lunch now that we have arrived in Cuero about noon. We went to a place familiar to us, the Main Street Kaffee haus and bakery.  The special for the day was either barbequed beef on a waffle or barbequed beef spaghetti.  I advised the congenial order person behind the order counter that both sounded horrible.  Dee made amends for me by saying that I was a traditionalist when it came to barbeque.  I picked up on that and ordered a bbq beef sandwich. It was good.  Here is  the inside of the self order café. The café is owned by ...

This community museum is small, but packed with interesting community historical information.  It is operated by the Lavernia Historical Association. We had travelled through Lavernia a few weeks ago and opted to return to this area specifically  to check out the museum.  It was a closely timed visit as they are only open for general visits one day per month.  They have quite a few visitors however, but most arrange a visit with group. Some interesting highlights:  One of the past featured displays was focused on churches in the area and the gist of that display is retained on the west wall.  Churches played a big role in the history of the area, and area settled mostly by immigrants of Poland and Germany origin. Pottery making was a significant industry here in Lavernia in the 1800s and so there is a feature showing the history of the Suttles Pottery and many examples of their pottery.  The pot making area of this pottery was within a stones throw...

We drove to north of Lockhart to visit the Reclaimed Space Factory on the access road of  Highway 130.  Reclaimed Space builds small (generally less than 1000 square feet) homes in their factory.   They try to use reclaimed materials in building these homes, put them on a flat bed truck and deliver them to your site.  It reminds one of a "mobile home" and they are similar in business concept, but the construction is not anything like the mobile home you know about.  These are built of real wood and have sturdy frames, solid components.  Presently, a substantial portion of their wood comes from dismantled tobacco barns that once existed in Kentucky. This business approach is ideal for those who want to have a place to live on a remote parcel of land because it completely solves the problem of finding a builder in an unfamiliar area.  The steps would be to purchase land, prepare the site by providing water and sewer facilities and electrical hookup, the...

The day was not an especially nice weather day, as it was cloudy and seemed like it could rain or mist, but it did not. Johnson City is on the way from Austin to parts unknown, and seems to try to get to be like Fredricksburg, but it probably won't make it. The area is where President Johnson grew up, his family had a large ranch here and thus the name of Johnson City was hung on it many years ago. First stop, of course was lunch.  A search of the web showed that the Country Cupboard was a popular spot, and it is located right at the intersection of westbound US290 and US 281.  We did not know it at the time, but on Friday, the catfish lunch is their highlight.  We luckily chose that.  Good fish, hush puppies, French fries and coleslaw. We drove westward to the old part of town, where the county courthouse is located.  Now, Blanco County likes to confuse folks as it has two county courthouses, one in Blanco, and this one in Johnson City.  Both are equal...

From this blog, one can easily see we get a lot of entertainment from short trips to explore the area around us in detail.  After all its the detail that provides the entertainment. Sometimes, you can be entertained by reading the local newspaper. For example, yesterday the local newspaper reported that the Board of Trustees of the local school district approved the filling of 7 new positions in the school system, for a total added expenditure of $325,000. The reporter went on to describe the new positions, because surely the taxpayer will be curious about where this nearly a third of a million dollars will be spent, and on what. One position is for a "credit recovery teacher" because there are "over 150 students who have lost credits and are attempting to recover their credits".  Anyone know about credit recovery? Another request was for four "social emotional learning counselors" to work "within our bullying protocol" and too "make ...

We were "on the fence" on our decision to visit the Jourdanton area on Saturday, but when Saturday arrived and the weather looked good, we were off on our trip.  We had an objective to visit the gun show in Jourdanton, but that would not have been enough incentive for the trip.  We always poke into detail on a trip like this to make it worthwhile. We travelled a different route south this time. Travelled through New Braunfels, to Hwy 1044, then to 175, then to 87 and hit the 1604 loop road south of San Antonio. Then sped down the Interstate to Pleasanton where we searched for food.  We didn't know it at the time, but all the glitz is on the road between Pleasanton and Jourdanton, a stretch of about 7 miles.  Glitsch meaning the array of fast food places.  We did know about two cafes as we researched the trip beforehand, but those two prospects, Lauries Deli and Chris's Café were closed on Saturday.  As a result of our lack of knowledge on all this, we had ...

We recently travelled to Wilson County to buy a few board feet of mesquite lumber for the next furniture project. We had become aware of Faifer as a supplier of wood harvested from some 100 miles around Floresville and so that was our destination. Travelling south from Seguin, the road takes you through some areas of sandy soil  that has attracted some great oak forests, for example, just north of Stockdale.  We were surprised (again) on the lack of commerce in Stockdale---it seems to be declining as a town.  Floresville, on the other hand, is very busy and seems to be in the center of business activity of the area. We bought the wood, chatted with the owners and learned a bit about the mesquite harvesting activity of the area. Back to the topic of personality of an area.  Travel northwest from where we live into the so called hill country and observe the nature of business and the kinds of people who live and visit the area. Then do the same for the area south of...