It’s a beautiful setting a few miles east of Taylor.   I’m not sure the residents enjoy the publicity, but a windmill and pond  are a fine combination at the right time of day.    With a busy night in store, this is the best I can do tonight.  

A friend’s ranch in Circleville (just north of Taylor) has a mesquite tree that’s weathered many a storm through the years.   It’s not large, but sitting atop a hill, I think it’s majestic.   A second photo shows a ranch feline making its way toward the tree, a bit of context. The other two are just things I like.   Our area of the Blackland Prairie is magical.  

Tonight was National Night Out in Texas.   Other states mostly conduct their celebrations in the summer months, but here the evening is observed in October.   These photographs were at the Georgetown Housing Authority’s Activity Learning Center.   Our daytime temperatures are still in the 90s, but evenings are now in the 60s.   It was a good night.

Grain elevators, another simple post tonight.   You might call them grain bins, or silos, but they’re grain elevators to me.   The opening photograph includes some railroad  tracks, but this post isn’t about trains.  

By now you probably know I post photographs from daily walks, most from Taylor.   These few are from strolls this past week, mostly tiny landscapes, simply paying attention to light.   The Olympus camera I’m toting continues to be a satisfying choice.   During Saturday’s Georgetown Powwow I shot a few photos with the Olympus, but soon realized that the slower lenses being used for walks don’t cut the mustard when working indoors in lower light  situations.   I think if I were to completely switch, it would have to be with the top-end Olympus camera, plus faster lenses.   For now, the Nikons will be the main cameras, as they have been for 54 years.   I’m still using DSLR models until they wear out, or I get a bunch of money for Nikon’s mirrorless camera systems.    The best advice for photographers is to use what fits your comfort zone.   There’s a lot of good stuff out there.   I love Canon, Fuji and Olympus.   Many friends have migrated to Sony.     Just use something where the equipment doesn’t get in the way.    So far, I’m not enamored with smartphones, but they work just fine for many who don’t earn their living through photography.

It was a pleasure to once again take photographs at Georgetown’s Powwow, held today at the Boys & Girls Club.   The last time I documented this event, in 2019,  it was on the campus of Southwestern University.   The work offered here is mostly self-explanatory, no need for an abundance of words.   The last photograph is a 3-year-old who wrapped herself in a blanket when audience members were welcomed to the dance floor.  She took them up on their offer.  This  a great event, but also an important one.  Culture matters.

Sometimes I try to stay close to home.   For now, home is Taylor.   Trains and railroad tracks continue to hold fascination.   Although I recently posted something about trains, let’s give it another shot tonight with an opening photograph.   Steps going over tracks at the Taylor rail yard are a fine place to get in some great exercise.   The young man was zooming up and down those steps!   The fire escapes are on what was once Hotel Blazimar, at the corner of First and Porter Streets.   Depending on what you read, it opened in either 1914 or 1917.   The four-story edifice was said to be quite grand in its day, with a ballroom taking up much of one floor.   It’s been closed for a long time.  I’d love to see it recast in some way.   The McCrory-Timmerman building, at the corner of Second and Main, is quite an active place now.  When we moved here in 2009 it was vacant, in need of much work.   Thanks to Judy Blundell and her helpers, it’s been given new life.  Birds flutter around an old streetlight along 2nd Street.   And a final one is there just because I like the light.

Just random photographs from the first few days of autumn, my friends, each taken around our bit  of Williamson County, Texas.   Included are places near Beyersville,  Coupland, Granger and Jonah, where the San Gabriel River was photographed last night.  We aren’t the Texas Hill Country, or Big Bend, or the Piney Woods, or the Gulf Coast.   We don’t get knock your socks off autumns, but it’s fine country, even when summer continues through October.

Morning walk photographs are mostly tiny landscapes, or birds, squirrels, turtles, etc.  Occasionally I’ll see something else that gets my attention.   During this morning’s walk,  this young guitarist was in heaven as he strummed away on his guitar, enjoying a cooler (for Texas) early-autumn day.   I removed my earbuds long enough to hear him playing.   And it was good.   As I continued my stroll,  he bid me  a good day.   The day sure improved after this.  

On a visit to Georgetown’s Berry Springs Park & Preserve years ago, I was initially taken with its grove of old-growth pecan trees.   While those are still wonderful, other things there sometimes get my attention.   Tonight, some of those “other things.”   The park was closed for a while earlier this year.   I’m glad its spaces are again open for all to see.