You’ll seldom see a post with few words, but you will tonight.   Cow eyes. 

Saturday afternoon I stopped by Walburg’s St. Peter Lutheran Church for their Hamburger Fundraiser, held to raise money for needed work on the church parsonage.   Since this was their  first fundraiser, I hadn’t expected  a crowd, but was pleasantly surprised  by the turnout.   The pastor, Philip Daniels, was helping flip juicy burgers on the grill.   Inside the church’s education  building, volunteers were serving up plates for diners.  Dessert choices, all made by church members, were plentiful.  The walls were adorned with quilts made by church members who meet a couple of times a month here to create them.   Numerous items were for sale, delighting both adults and children.

Photos taken during a morning walk in Taylor on Friday.   Most of my walk photos focus on detailed offerings.    I enjoy seeing what light can do.  

It’s not really the color of a strawberry, but I’ll go along with the naming convention this evening.   This is tonight’s Strawberry Moon,  shining over a farm just outside Taylor.   For almost every full moon, I see  photos where the moon is presented as something incredibly huge in the frame.   My preference, as with this one tonight, is to show how the moon relates to the landscape, and to how you see it with your own eyes.    This is a farm on the Blackland Prairie.

The evening hunt wasn’t going so well on this first day of summer, but about twenty or so minutes before sunset the clouds and sky came together nicely a little south of Granger.   You can barely make out the rainbow in a couple, but in the end I just focused on that golden windmill.  

A few years ago, before nearby light pollution took hold, I spent an entire night on this truss bridge in anticipation of a meteor shower.   I didn’t get the desired photograph, but it was otherwise pleasant to rest above the San Gabriel River.

The Rowe Valley Bridge, also called the Easley Bridge, is along County Road 366, just south of Texas 29.  Built in 1909, it  sustained tremendous damage during the 1921 floods.  By 1930, a group of citizens had revitalized it, raising its base by four feet.   It closed in the early-1980s when a more secure concrete bridge replaced it.

The old bridge remains.   Through the years it’s been  a photographic destination for many couples and individuals.   It’s also been harmed by graffiti and other bits of vandalism.  Trees and shrubs continue to latch onto its metal beams.  The wooden floor has several missing pieces.   Spiders spin their webs around the steel.   Some might consider it an eyesore.   I do not.

Last week concerned nearby residents began hearing word that the bridge may be coming down.   So far, that’s not been established.

I’d love to see the county give this bridge some love.   It’s played an important role in the history of the Blackland Prairie.  It would sad to lose this bit of living history.

A bit of tropical disturbance is set to pounce on our Texas coast, but today in Taylor we’ve (so far) seen nothing but a gentle and consistent rain.   A view from inside my car this evening, a photo taken with an almost 50-year-old lens.

Did y’all know it’s National Pollinator Week through June 23rd?    I did not, but a few photographer friends knew all about it.   Do grasshoppers count?   That’s okay if they’re not because they’re just dynamic little critters.   These were taken Tuesday evening in the Sunken Garden at Georgetown’s San Gabriel Park. 

Coupland is a little community of around 300 just a few miles south of Taylor.  I often drive through there on the way to somewhere else, but sometimes I stop. For such a small town it’s got a lot of charm.   Over the years I’ve taken many photos there.  Favorite subjects include the Katy Depot, a wonderful caboose, St. Peter’s Church of Coupland, Jim Huntington’s Sculpture Foundation Garden, remnants of an old mill and a truss bridge spanning Brushy Creek  just outside town.   The bridge played a prominent role in the 2003 movie “Secondhand Lions.”   The sunset photo includes a barn that a few folks said was at one time a school for African American  children.   There’s a wandering peacock named Henry, but he eluded me on multiple visits.   There were, however, some wandering chickens strolling through the Huntington Sculpture Garden.  And riding lawnmowers are good modes of transport there. 

Beyersville is an area southeast of  Taylor in Williamson County, Texas that (so far) hasn’t been impacted  by unchecked development.    Visits to this area are resplendent.