The Summer Wind is Blowing In!

It's been busy in the garden this year. Things are growing like crazy. Our potatoes are the biggest we have ever had; at least above ground! There might not be any potatoes with all this top growth. We'll just have to wait and see. 


The tomato plants are loaded and we've been eating squash for a while. One way I like to fix the squash is to saute it with some sliced onions (also from the garden) in olive oil and then serve on top of cooked pasta.

We've had a lot of bugs this year. Huge grasshoppers and lots of katydids. I got some fly traps to try and keep the flies down around the longhorns pen. We've been spraying Woodrow and Gus also. They don't much care for it and it takes patience, but they will eventually stand still while you spray them. More or less.


I saw this huge 7" walking stick bug yesterday by the pump house. I think it's the biggest one I've ever seen! 


One day there was a buzzard in the garden and I went out to investigate. He was after a dead snake that had gotten tangled in some bird netting and died. It was a western coach whip about 5 feet long.


Baby turkeys are back this year! With the drought last year there weren't any babies on our place. Three hens and their babies have been coming to the milo I throw out every day. We also had a couple of quail in the pasture. It has been almost 20 years since we had quail!

The year we bought our place my Dad gave me an old restaurant style double sink. It was on wobbly legs that were welded on. We thought at one time that we might use it as an outside sink, but plans changed on that. I wanted to keep it because it reminded me of my Dad. So one day I kicked the welds lose and removed the legs, painted it, and planted it with native deer-resistant plants. 

I have always been madly in love with old enamel top tables. If I had room I would have a dozen of them! Since I don't, I only have two. Neither is on the original base. One is on an old sewing machine base and has been on the back porch since we built the cabin. The other used to be my desk. It has lately just been stored in the woodshed. I took it out the other day and put it on the back porch to use for a plant stand.

The Spring wildflowers have given way to Summer wildflowers. One of the prettiest is a type of bee balm called Horse Mint. It grows in clumps about 2 feet tall. During a wet year a while back we gathered some seeds from some plants and scattered them on our place. We forgot all about them and this year they came up and surprised us! 

Rickie and I took a day off from gardening and cedar cutting to float down the river this week. It was beautiful and we beat the holiday crowd coming in. Life is good!


"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it." Russel Baker

The Times They Are A'Changing

The world is changing and that is not always a bad thing. A generation that grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars, with a universe inhabited by strange and fabulous beings, does not bat an eye at a human that is a different color or has a different preference in a life partner than what used to be considered acceptable. Why would they? Society has evolved over the thousands of years of human life and it will continue to evolve. As it should. Who among us wants to go back and live in the dark ages, even the relatively recent dark ages? Each generation leaves their mark behind in moving us along to a greater understanding of our fellow beings. (Photo - Famous blues club Antone's and newer Frost Bank Tower behind it in Austin, Texas)

The original Star Trek series came out when I was in high school. Before that there were stories and ideas of rockets and space travel. But Star Trek brought it to life for us. It showed an acceptance of other life forms as a given, not as a bold and brave idea by a portion of the human race. As the original series was followed by the next generation of space travelers, more and more beings from other places were incorporated into the crew. All adding to the richness of an ever expanding universe. And all being accepted as “normal” and “natural” by the humans in the series and those following it.


Before Star Trek, the cowboy and the mountain man was our hero, boldly going where no “white” man had gone before. He came into contact with humans of a different color and a different lifestyle. In order for both societies to survive, they had to evolve into a common society that was different than either of the separate ones had been before. Some things were lost and some were gained. But things had to change in order for both to survive. 


(Photo - From a time gone by, a braid of hair used as a handle for a piece of ceramic vase. I found this on our property and we are still trying to find the pieces of the vase.)

As we could look back upon these times with hindsight, the character of many of these men going west, and the men they met, was rewritten in books and movies to make them seem more noble than they were. This was regrettable because we should look at things as they were and not clean them up. It was what it was, and it should be taught that way in history class. 


But in another way it showed, I think, that we wished it had been different. We wished the cultures had been more accepting of each other and not distrustful and hateful to others because they were different. By going into the future with Star Trek and Star Wars, we were able to create humans and a universe as we wanted it to be. Where our opinion of other beings was based on their behavior and we never even seemed to notice if they had a big ridged forehead or were covered with fur.

Society is now evolving, as it always has, and some people find that hard to accept. They want to hang on to a way of life as they know it and as they believe it to be right. They often say things like well, our forefathers wanted it this way. But our forefathers lived in a different world then. What worked for them doesn’t always work for us. Some of the things they did horrify us today, such as slavery, burning people at the stake, and making people of color use a different restroom. We can’t go back to that time, and most of us would surely not want to.


(Photo - Will my youngest grandchild Bixby, in the photo with me, see as many changes in his lifetime as my grandmother saw in hers?)

I look out my back window this morning and Woodrow and Gus are lying down in the sun on the side of the hill. They are about 30 yards apart facing each other and their heads nod as they nap after a night of grazing. For them, life appears unchanged from 100 years ago. As a person enthralled with the cowboy image of the 1800s, I love this picture I see of them. This glimpse of a way of life mostly gone now. But out here in the Texas Hill Country, and in other parts of the country, we can have some of the good parts of that life still, without having the bad parts of it. (This photo is of Rickie and Gus and Woodrow a couple of years back.)


And while we may mourn for a way of life lost, remembering the good and forgetting the bad, we can’t stop time. It marches on. 


“It’s your world now, use well your time, be part of something good, leave something good behind. The curtain falls, I take my bow, that’s how it’s meant to be, it’s your world now.” Eagles 

Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man

Thirty-one years ago today the 28 year old boy from Mississippi with no prior experience with kids married the 31 year old single mom with two half grown sons. And so their story began.

If he could have seen the life that lay ahead for him, the hardships and the heartaches, the sacrifices he would be called upon to make, he might have turned around and headed the other way the day he walked into the office and the young woman asked him what he wanted in his coffee.

But he came to love her with the kind of love that charges head-on into the fray. The kind of love that runs deep beneath the surface. The kind of love that sticks.

There were challenges from the start as with most blended families. The boys were past the age where the man raising them could have complete influence on the men they would grow up to be. He faced the usual resentment of a person that is put into a position of being a parent to kids who don’t think they need another parent. He started off trying to be a father and learned as time went by that he would have to create a new position in their lives for himself. He would not be accepted as “the father”. He would have to become “the step-father”. This acceptance hit him hard but he was always one to face reality and so he tried to rewrite what being a step-father meant and he learned on the job.

He made mistakes as he went and he grieved over them. As he grew older he wished, as most parents do, that he had done this different, or that different. But there were many things outside his control as any step-parent knows. He is in a position of responsibility with not much power. Sort of like a Vice-President.

Financially, things were hard. Overnight the young man was supporting a family of four, soon to be five. There was very little financial support from the boys’ father. He sent enough each month to feed them for two weeks. Everything else, including a home, furniture, clothes, school supplies, and out of pocket medical expenses were paid for by the step-father. He took on the role of father without the title of father.  

He worked in the oilfield. Oil prices hit rock bottom and the oilfield collapsed. One after another job was lost as companies closed. He always found another job. He faced stress over financial worries that he kept from the kids as much as he could. Sometimes they had to move and it wasn’t always an easy move or one they wanted. But he did what he had to do to support the family. He bore the burden of knowing he had to make some moves that were not popular among the kids. He felt at times that he had failed them.

A baby daughter was soon born to the struggling young couple. She was a lot like her father and a lot like her mother. He taught her to be strong and to speak up and say what she thought. He taught her to pick herself up after a fall; that there is nothing you can’t recover from; that sometimes you have to be your own hero. He taught her to think for herself and to question established beliefs. They often argued over things and the mother was the only one that realized they did this because they were so alike. When the daughter grew up and was on her own he knew the pride in how strong she had become and admitted to her that he could not have done all she did at the age she was; that he would have given up.

The boys grew up and left home almost as soon as they graduated high school. They faced challenges of their own. Through it all they were responsible and worked hard for their families. The step-father was proud of them and all they accomplished. Like him, they are family men and this guides them in all they do.

Time went by and the young man, now older, knew the love of grandchildren. The unique relationship that skips a generation and that relies more on love than responsibility. The joy of seeing a 5 year old grin with delight at pulling a carrot out of the grandfather’s garden and declare to him that she wants to be a farmer when she grows up. The lunch date with a grown-up granddaughter to celebrate her birthday and to see how the baby girl he had read to had grown up to be strong and independent. Taking a grandson hunting and teaching him about wildlife and a person’s responsibility toward it and working on the ranch with him and sitting around the campfire. Teaching young grandsons the Texas tradition of washer pitching and hearing about the technical things they do without understanding always what they are talking about but marveling at it all the same. Talking with a young great-grandson and seeing how strong and responsible the grandson is that is raising him. Holding a new baby grandson in his arms and seeing some of his and his daughter’s face reflected back at him. Hosting family gatherings with his famous fajitas and leading everyone on a shopping trip across the border and a tube float down a clear Texas river.

He taught the young mom he married to always stand up for herself and that she had much to be proud of in herself. He could look at her, a bandana keeping her hair from her face as she gardens and works outside, with dirt on her hands and knees, and see a beautiful person. He taught her that being strong and independent was to be valued more than lipstick and nice shoes. He taught her that people will not always like her, maybe not even her own children at times, but that she can only control herself, not everyone else, not even those she loves most. He taught her she has value and no matter if she stands all alone in this life, she can stand with pride in the person she is and the life she has led.

This Mississippi boy is my husband and this family is mine. Thank you for these 31 years, Rickie, and for the life we live. Happy Anniversary. I love you.

Where the wild things are.....

A couple of weeks ago I was working on the back porch cleaning the last of the kale I had picked from the garden. Suddenly I heard a gobble. I looked up from my kale and down the hill behind the cabin was a big gobbler strutting across the pasture, looking like the perfect Thanksgiving turkey. When they have their feathers spread out like that and their necks bright red, they walk with tiny steps, like a child walking in too big shoes trying to keep them on! It takes a lot of effort to get your body pumped up like they do. To the side of me I could hear a hen making her love call. Not to worry, her turkey man was on his way! I watched him as he headed that way and then things quieted down.

The turkeys that live here have been hanging around the last few weeks. We were so glad to see them; we had been worried after the drought and they seemed to be late in returning from wherever it is they go. We had only seen one hen and a bobcat got her right behind the cabin. There have now been about 18 hens around and we’ve seen 3 gobblers. One of the gobblers is gigantic. 


Yesterday I saw a lone hen at the water trough. They will separate when they are getting ready to nest. I hope she is wise in the way of the animal world and able to avoid the fate of her sister turkey hen. 


This morning I had been awakened by a hen loudly calling for a mate. Then I heard a loud noise that sounded like someone was banging on the metal roof! I looked but could not see anything. 

Well, a little bit after the handsome turkey man I had seen earlier headed toward his lady friend, I was walking out to hang something on the clothesline. I heard the same big bang that I had heard that morning. It was loud and sounded just like someone beating a hammer on a piece of tin. It was behind me. I turned around back toward where the gobbler had been headed earlier.


There were two gobblers and they were fighting for the hen! They had their wings spread wide and jumped into the air and banged their chests together. This was making the loud noise I had heard. I couldn't believe such a noise coming from the chests of birds, but there it was, right in front of me! They did this for a few times and then took off away from me. One went one way in the direction the hen had been calling from and the other went the opposite direction, hoping, I’m sure, to find another lady love.

This weekend we saw a baby hognose snake in the driveway. (The photo is of a big hognose we saw on the road last year.) Rickie really wanted to put him in a box and study him for a few days. I was less than enthusiastic, although I don’t have a big fear of snakes, I just don’t like to be surprised by them and I respect poisonous ones. The hognose isn’t poisonous. But I could picture him escaping and living in the cabin with me. Rickie decided against catching him. The snake slithered off toward the pumphouse, where I am sure he will get big and scare the bejeebers out of me one day.

I emptied out about 20 jars of peach jam and grape jelly from year before last. It’s still ok to eat but we find it loses some flavor when it is that old, so we don’t keep it. I put it all in a large enamelware bowl and put it out for the varmints. That evening I looked out the kitchen window and sure enough there was a big raccoon practically sitting in the bowl. Another raccoon waddled off, looking slightly comatose. They ate most of the bowl of jam that night. I don’t know if they were sick the next day but they sure were sticky! They didn’t return the next night or the next to finish it up. (Photo is raccoon footprint.)

I found some animal scat on the cliff a couple of weeks ago. It was full of deer hair. (Photo was taken at the top of the cliff back in the winter.) I had seen some hair scattered back by the turkey feeder. The scat was large and I think, although I can't be sure, that it was left by a mountain lion. We have them in the area. A deer was killed across the street from us last year by one, and another deer killed right down the street in my neighbor's yard one night. It is mostly rock back there so I couldn't find any tracks but I'm going to be keeping my eyes open!


A neighbor told me this week that they had seen two badgers (or the same one twice) during hunting season. We have never seen any. But we do have a lot of dens in the ground all over the place. Foxes live in them and we do often have foxes that visit us at the water trough at night looking for the food scraps we put out. So I assume there could be badgers living in some of them. I don't really want to run into one! Maybe they won't want to run into me either, so we will both be safe.


Living out here on the land between civilized subdivided America and the big empty wild west puts us in contact with many wild things. Some peaceful and some not so much. At times it can scare you but you can't be scared by the way it is if you want to experience the good life you can live here. 


"I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me." Mark Twain


"Wild animals would not stay in a country where there were so many people. Pa did not like to stay either. He liked a country where the wild animals lived without being afraid. " Laura Ingalls Wilder

The love my Mama sewed in every stitch....

When you are a downsizer you can't save a lot of things and it's odd sometimes what you choose to save. I was emptying out our storage closet last week since we don't have enough left in it to justify keeping it and I ran across 2 things Mama had made for me. 


One was a set of kitchen towels she had crocheted a border on so you could button them to a cabinet or stove handle. Every home in the South has these, I believe, and our house had them as far back as I can remember. Mama made these for me when we bought our house in Katy 12 years ago.

The other and the most precious was some faded yellow curtains with nursery characters appliqued on the border. Mama made these when Larry was a baby. I was 18 years old when Larry was born. Looking back I realize what a baby I was myself. My mom still had 5 kids at home, the youngest my brother Lee who was only 8 years old. She worked full time and there were a lot of things going on in the family to cause her grief. Yet she worked at night making these for Larry's room. She cut out the nursery rhyme characters from a piece of material and hand appliqued them onto the yellow fabric. Yellow has always been one of my favorite colors. I like the warm fiesta colors - reds, yellows, and oranges. 


Larry was her first grandchild and held that special place that only the first one can hold. The first ones always seem to be the most independent and don't always stay close in proximity but they have that distinct place in the family that no one else shares with them. They are the ones you learn with and you often wish you could go back and do over some things. Mama made a lot of clothes for Larry when he was a baby. I think he was the only grandchild she did that for. I don't know where she found the time but she did and he is wearing things she made in some of his baby pictures.


Larry's baby bedroom was very plain and cheaply furnished. It didn't have all the latest gadgets and toys that kids have now. It didn't have a theme and his bedding wasn't special order that cost as much as the house payment. He had one pacifier and when that was misplaced you were in for a long night. I washed clothes every day because he would run out of diapers if I didn't. Pampers had just come out but we couldn't afford them. 


The yellow curtains were the most special thing about his room. They were made by a grandmother who was overworked and stressed almost beyond endurance during those times. My dad was drinking and the financial situation at their home was dire. My own marriage was not stable and never was from the beginning. I had knowingly married a man who bullied me and ran around on me because things were bad at my home and I wanted to get out of there whatever the cost. 

My mother and I were bound together in our unhappy situations, the feeling of helplessness shared and unspoken between us. But Larry was the joy that bound us also. And the gift of her time and the love she sewed into the baby curtains made them a treasure to rival Dolly Parton's coat of many colors. 

So for 15 moves these faded yellow curtains have made the cut when it came time to pack. I never consciously thought about why I kept them when I threw out items that were more expensive and fashionable. I just knew I could not let them go. They bind me to my mother still. And to the love she, baby Larry, and I shared. A love that brought a happiness to an 18 year old teenager during a time that saw much in the way of heartbreak for Mama and for me.

I cried when I saw these. This week it's been a year since Mama was released from her Alzheimer's prison. When the roll is called up yonder she'll be there.

Keeper of Secrets

The original reason I started this blog was to tell my children stories of my childhood. This is one of those stories.........

I am 7 years old dancing in the back yard. I spread my arms wide and the soft red silk of the kimono sleeves hangs down from my arms like wings. I spin around and around, as the sun shines down on me and the bright colors. I am a butterfly dancing in the wind.

My grandmother had gotten this kimono out of her cedar chest. She had a cedar chest in her room and it was full of mysterious surprises and secrets. We are never allowed to go into her room and open it up without her. But this day she has opened it and she had taken these precious things out.  Some kimonos and a flag from Japan. The flag had a big red circle in the middle of it.

All these things were mysterious to us. We lived in a little town in north Louisiana and we didn’t know any Asians. Our first Asian exposure would come later with Hop Sing on Bonanza. Yes, very mysterious things.

(Photo - me in my normal attire)

We were told by our grandmother and our mother that these things were sent back from the war by my Uncle Buddy who was killed in World War II. I didn’t think of it at the time as I was very young but later when I was older I thought it strange for several reasons.  For one thing Uncle Buddy was in Europe not Japan. He was in General Patton’s army and was killed there. He is buried overseas in France. I didn’t think he had ever been to Japan.

Also I could not understand why my grandmother would let us play with things her son had sent home from the war. Buddy was her only son, my mother’s only brother.  These things should have been too precious to be turned over to kids for dress-up play. It seems to me there was a sword in a scabbard also but it may be that my memory is not correct on that. I wouldn't have been allowed to play with it, but I have a picture in my mind of my older brother looking at a sword as I stand over his shoulder.

We played with the kimonos and the flag until they were tattered and thrown out. And as I got older that was the biggest point of confusion for me. Why did they let us destroy these things from Japan, these souvenirs my uncle had sent home? But I never asked about them. I’m not sure why.

Years later when I was grown and had my own children I was at my Dad’s mother’s house. Grandma Hattie told me she had something for me. She went into the bedroom and came back with a small white box. Maybe 4 x 5 inches in size. She opened it up. It was lined with soft white silk cloth. She took out the silk handkerchief that was in the box and spread it on the table. You could tell it had been in the box a while; it had creases set into the silk. On the handkerchief was a painting of my mother. I had never seen this before although I had seen the photograph it was copied from. My mother was young and beautiful, her blonde hair long and curly. There was a signature of the Japanese artist that had painted the portrait.

Grandma Hattie told me that Mama had given this to my grandfather many years ago and that she wanted me to have it. I asked her where it came from. She said my mother’s first husband had had it painted in Japan when he was there during the war.

The first thought I had was that the mystery of the kimonos was solved. These treasures had not been sent home by my Uncle Buddy. They had been sent to my mother from her husband while he was in Japan. That is why my grandmother and mother let us play with them. They were not as precious to them as they would have been had they come from a lost son and brother.

I didn’t know my mother had been married before. As it turned out none of my siblings did except my older brother and his wife. Grandma Hattie had told him shortly before she told me.

I’m not sure why Mama would not have ever told us. It wouldn't have made any difference in our lives or in the way we thought of her except to maybe surprise us that our mom had a life outside of us! It was just another layer of the woman she was. But my mother was a keeper of secrets. And until she died my brother and I kept the secret with her. I felt it was not my secret to tell and I guess my brother felt the same. I waited for her to one day bring it up. She never did.

But I sometimes thought about this young man that my mother had married. She came from a very small town in Louisiana. There were only 13 kids in her high school graduation class. Sometimes you marry who is available; not necessarily who is suited for you. I wondered if he had survived the war. Did he have a family that would have wanted the kimonos we so childishly played with? Was he a nice person or a bully? Did he find a true love like my mom found with my dad?

Did the photograph of my mom he carried in his wallet comfort him during horrible times of the war, so young and so far from that very small Louisiana town? I hope so.

(Photo - me, Mama, and my sister Kathy)

One day my brother and I were visiting with my mom and he asked her where she met our dad. She said they went to school together. He said he didn’t know that. That’s because they didn’t go to school together; they met at a church function when they were grown. My mom’s mind had confused the memories in her life and she was talking about the boy from Epps, Louisiana. Your mind takes trips back in time when you live with Alzheimer’s.

Shortly before our mom passed away, I told my other siblings what Grandma Hattie had told me. Mama had kept her secret but it didn’t matter to any of us. We all keep our own secrets.

And it mattered not one bit to the little 7 year old butterfly with the bright red silk wings dancing in the wind.

Green acres is the place for me!

Last week it was a warm sunny day; I was outside shooting my shotgun at a sign that I was trying to add some character to. I managed to hit it a few times once I remembered I tend to aim high and lowered my sights! Which means if you are a burglar I will shoot you in the head if I'm aiming at your knee, so look out!) I went inside to put the shotgun up and get the drill to hang the sign on the garden shed and one of those “blue northers” Texas is famous for blew in! Just that quick the temps dropped and over the next few days we had a total of 4” of rain!

The cistern was overflowing and the draws were up and running. It’s been about 20 years since I saw this much water in the draws, although I am sure it was that way the few times we got multiple inches of rain. I just wasn’t here.

The day we got the most rain it was cold and windy and still drizzling but after I fed the longhorns I just had to go see for myself what it was like. So I grabbed my cedar walking stick, the one that has been worn smooth for the 20+ years I have been using it, and my phone so I could take videos and headed down toward the back of our place. I also like to carry my phone in case I break my leg and need to call for help! Not that that would help if I was at the bottom of the hill with “no service”. But we can’t let these things slow us down or we would never have any fun!

There is a big draw that runs across the back of our property. Years ago when we got more rain than we do now the springs back there flowed and kept pools of water here and there. We refer to this draw as the creek, though it is not technically a creek. It flows into a creek down from us and calling it a creek is easier than trying to explain what draw we are talking about. Several draws on our place feed into this dry creek. 

(Photo above is wild Verbena that covers the pastures now. And a scary looking prickly pear.)

Our property is high and flat on the front area beside the road. This continues back past the cabin and ends in a high cliff with the creek below it. But one side of our place doesn’t end in this cliff. The ground slopes away down to the creek. It is beautiful back there and one of my favorite places. There are huge rocks and the ground kind of steps down with the big boulders forming shelves as the ground descends. There is also a road that winds around behind us. The big draw/creek comes down from property across from the back of ours, crossing the road and making a turn to run all along our property from side to side. One side of the draw on the other side of the road from us is a high cliff and one side is low. It is rugged and beautiful.

(Video - Grab your tubes, kids!)

Well, mercy me, we had a flowing river back there! The water was coming from a couple of draws we had and it was coming from across the road. These flows joined together and if I had had a tube, I could have jumped in! The sound was as beautiful as the sight!

Our place is fenced before the creek even though it is on our property here. You can’t fence a creek and have any expectation of the fence staying there when it rains, so our fences across the back are placed before you get to the creek. There are two “water gap” fences on each side of our place and one in the middle at a cross fence running from front to back. The one on the cliff side hangs in the air way above the creek. The one on the sloping side hangs above the mouth of the draw feeding into the creek. The one in the middle hangs about a foot or two above the creek bed. That is the one that will get you if you did jump in with a tube!

I walked all along the creek taking videos. I saw a whitened deer skeleton on the other side of the fence on a piece of grassy land above the creek under some cedars. Then I wanted to see the other side of the cross fence where the bed widens and then continues under the cliff. So I forgot I was old and climbed the cross fence, ducked under some cedar trees and came out on the banks of the creek right where it widens. It was rolling and muddy; there is a lot of silt in this section. It was several feet deep; from looking at the cross fence I would say it was probably 4 feet deep here.

From here I climbed away from the creek back up to the level of the cliff. There was a beautiful area by the cross fence where the rocks and clear water formed a little waterfall. Once I got to the top I walked back to an area that has an overlook of the whole creek and road.

It was amazing! After the drought of the last few years, and especially the last year, it was a sight to make you laugh and cry at the same time. If you live in a place with lots of rainfall, I’m not sure you can understand the excitement, but boy howdy, it was enough to make dry country people holler "yeehaw"!

The next day I went back to the cliff in the rain to see what was left. It was smaller and clearing up but still had water flowing. I was hearing some thunder around so didn’t tarry long. The following day the rain cleared and the sun came out. I got my walking stick and went back to the sloped side. There was now a small stream of water and it was crystal clear, crossing the road and bubbling and falling down the slope over huge flat rocks. The cedar smell filled the clear air. I could have stayed there forever.

Again I climbed the cross fence and then waded into the water where the bed widens out. It was clear and about 6 inches deep. I wanted to get to the upper part of the creek but the cross fence over the water was in the way. I might could have gotten under it in a section that is bent up but I am clumsy and figured it would involve getting wet. So I climbed up the opposite bank where there is another fence that marks our boundary. This one is barbed wire so I went through it with only a couple of snags! This put me out on the road. I walked back in the direction I had originally come from and enjoyed the beauty of it all. I was alone and the only sound was the water bubbling. Then I went back into the creek bed and climbed the fence there back into our place and eventually headed back to the cabin. And made a note that we need to add a gate or two back there!

(Photo below - this small yellow flower is everywhere. It looks like paint has spilled over the land.)

Everything is so green with all this rain. Small wildflowers cover the ground; it is a carpet of yellow and white and purple. In the garden the first bluebonnets are blooming; the ones outside the garden have not started yet but they are growing. The trees are putting out tiny leaves, even the live oaks that haven’t had leaves for the last year. The longhorns are grazing once more in the pastures, a sight we had almost given up on seeing again. They have gone 20 months without anything green to eat. We are talking about not buying any more hay once what is in the hay barn is gone. Just buying the sweet feed we always feed them.

In another lifetime I knew a preacher that used to sing “Showers of Blessings” at the top of his lungs every time it rained. This week the mercy drops round us have been falling. Life is good out here in the Texas Hill Country.

(Photo below is an Evening Primrose. The yard is full of them and they open at twilight and face the setting sun. The next morning they are turned toward the East to greet the rising sun, as if they have followed the sun through the night. And maybe they have.)