There’s a lot to love about the San Gabriel River,  adorned with  good places to wander.    This is among my favorite spots,  a site where I can observe activity from a high angle, giving the subjects their privacy while I snap away with a telephoto lens.   Great Blue Herons have got to be direct descendants from prehistoric times.   It was a delight to observe this one as she searched for fish in the shallow water.   This little session was probably 15-20 minutes.   The light was nice, too!

Scenes like this make me think being a vegetarian was a good thing.   Family time on the prairie.

Even though it’s only mid-April, temperatures were climbing into the mid-90s today in Georgetown.   Much of today’s efforts were devoted to covering the Georgetown ISD Special Olympics, held at the district’s athletics complex.   Special Olympics have been one of the best things I’ve covered, going back to the mid-1970s.  The first couple are from the opening ceremonies, plus a bit of this and that.   When athletes needed a rest, they found a cooler place underneath the stadium stands, where students found simple joy with very large bubbles.   This two-day event continues Tuesday, but it’s not likely I’ll be there for that.  

If you’ve recently begun to follow these posts, note that during each morning walk I snap a few photographs with an inexpensive Olympus camera.    Purchased used, it’s a good bet the camera and lenses cost less than your intelligent phones.   These were all from Taylor walks.  Therapy, friends.   We see what we see.

Simple offerings tonight, including (in order) moonset (6:40am), sunrise (7:06am) and moonrise ( a little after 8pm tonight).   Our internet connection has been down most of the day.  It was finally restored tonight.  

At 99.3% visibility, it’s doggone close to a full moon tonight.    Photographs this evening were taken in Bartlett, about twenty minutes north of Taylor.   The first one is just before the evening blue light arrived.  Others are what they are, but I did turn around to record that beautiful dirt road.    I’m determined to drive less.  It’s an obsession.

Some of these wanderings yield very little.   Often I return home with what there is to see.   Last night was coming close to that when this scene came into view.   Thankfully, it was another lightly-traveled county road, providing scant  moments  to do  a few photographs before the sun tucked into the horizon.   A continual concern is just how much driving has to be done for these pursuits.    I’m expending a ton of money on fuel, adding up the miles on the car.   Thankfully, it’s a fuel-efficient vehicle.   The land around here is being scooped up at a rapid pace, sending the cameras further away from Taylor.   If you see a slow-down in production, understand why.   Most of what’s posted here isn’t for financial gain.   It’s therapy.  

In 2024 the St. Peter Lutheran Church Cemetery was almost entirely covered with wildflowers.   There are less of them to see this year, but they’re still coming along nicely.   I stopped by Wednesday evening to snap a few photographs.   The last two photographs are very tiny wildflowers finding space among the bluebonnets.   According to a Google photo search they are Nothoscordum bivalves, each no larger than a small thumb.   Naturalist friends, feel free correct me if wrong.   They’re nice little blooms, but a little hard to document with a strong Texas wind.    The cemetery is along FM 972,  just east of the downtown area.

Driving by this farmhouse last evening called to mind Tom Bodett’s pitch for Motel 6,  “We’ll leave the light on for you.”   A few folks around here live pretty close to that farmhouse, but I don’t need to know about that.   In recent years there’s been  activity there, cars, humans, dogs, etc.  Wednesday evening, however, it was quite peaceful,  warm light caressing  a fine-looking front porch.   A twenty-second stop produced this photograph. Thankfully, not a soul was coming behind me.   Moseying  on home,  I was glad to find a quiet scene  on the increasingly-crowded Blackland Prairie.

Unless specified otherwise, when I say “river” it means the San Gabriel River.   An area of the river I love to see is in the Mankins Crossing area, just east of Georgetown.   Extreme drought hasn’t been kind.   Three outings took me there in recent days, with hopes of finding human interaction with the space.   Those first visits yielded egrets and herons as they sought sustenance in the water.   One evening presented the night’s blue light over the river.  On my last venture, however, just a couple of nights ago, a young man navigated his kayak through the water.   He wasn’t fishing, just glad to be there.  He mentioned this was his first time there.   My guess is that kayak will dip into that water again.  It’s the opening photograph tonight.