Sunset near our home in Taylor, Texas this evening. Like them or not, windmills are subjects I’ll return to time and time again. They are wound into the fabric of where I live. They merit my attention. 
Spring began this morning. This sunrise image was taken as the sun rose over Jonah School, now the Jonah Community Center. The school has been here since 1922. I’m glad it continues to find purpose. 
Needing to relieve some stress tonight, I found my way to Coupland, spending a few good minutes at the sculpture garden created by Jim Huntington. These large and beautiful pieces are made of stone and metal, most weighing several thousand pounds. The way good light reacts to these pieces is interesting. In the early 1990s, looking for a new area to live, pointed his finger at a map and found Coupland, a community in southern Williamson County with a pretty steady population of around 300. Raised in Elkhart, Indiana, Jim spent years in New York and San Francisco before landing in this laid-back community. Those are cactus plants, not sculptures, pictured in the silhouette. And that’s a Waxing Crescent moon, 35.8% visible, shining beyond a piece in the last photo. If you visit Coupland, his sculpture garden is easy to find. Coupland’s not crowded. 
In a post last week, I mistakenly identified a grape hyacinth as a Texas Bluebonnet. Call it a senior moment. 
Let’s correct that error with this post. Bluebonnets have begun to sprout in Central Texas. These photo are from a couple of places in Georgetown, but the majority (the first six) are from a little family cemetery in Circleville. I found this cemetery quite by accident a few years ago. Driving along a nice little county road, a few bluebonnets peeked out from atop a hill. Getting out of the car for a closer look, there was the cemetery, adorned with bluebonnets. So far, the well-kept burial site isn’t covered with flowers, but it’s looking mighty pretty just the same. As if you need a reminder, rattlesnakes like wildflowers, too.
Sometimes, when preferred photos are available, I’ll let a few images take a back seat. Often as not, they end up sitting on my crowded computer desktop for months. That’s what you see here tonight, including a couple tree photos from January and February. And a horse grazing in mid-January. Just stuff, friends. Now I can continue to file these old things. 
The sun peeked in and out of the clouds above Georgetown late Tuesday afternoon. We had a forecast of possible turbulent weather for Tuesday night, into Wednesday morning. The only thing I saw this morning were a few remnants of rain. The sun is out. We’ve had enough bad weather to last us a few lifetimes in Texas. 
Rather than wait for the massive crowds of egrets to return to the rookery at Taylor’s Murphy Park, this year I watched as the first to arrive engaged in their mating rituals. There will no doubt be large numbers as the weeks progress, but I enter their world in quiet steps this year.
While another photo task takes up some extra time, it’s a good evening to post some leftover images from my wandering on Daylight Saving Time. The first photo was taken a little before what would’ve been dawn if it weren’t for rain and clouds, but blue images always intrigue me. The other two photos are from evening rambling 12 hours later. I could’ve stopped after my morning outing, but a burst of energy took hold. It’s planting season, a good time to see farm equipment, the day’s work done, waiting in a field for the next outing. That last photo is this huge oak tree I’ve been trying to photograph since moving to the area in 2009. It’s a fat old thing that hasn’t changed its look for years. Just leftovers, folks. 
I was so ticked off about the start of Daylight Saving Time today that I rolled out of bed 45 minutes before dawn to see what there was to see. What I saw was a cloudy and drizzly start to the day, but an old farmhouse photographed a few times was recorded again. That house, and the land and sky around it is the essence of the Blackland Prairie. Tonight, with a little burst of energy, I photographed the farmhouse again. Also included here are pre-dawn and sundown photos of an interesting barn. The last photo was taken tonight. No morning version is included here. I just liked the way it looked. Note that I still do not like Daylight Saving Time. Reconfiguring nature makes little sense. 
As I drove around this morning in search of some sort of feature for my friends at the Williamson County Sun, I was almost ready to give it up, but driving by San Gabriel Park in Georgetown, I spotted kids, parents and grandparents enjoying soccer matches on some pristine green fields. The teams a part of Georgetown Parks and Recreation’s Youth Soccer League. The rain was steady enough to encourage use of umbrellas. Thankfully, just a gentle rain, no stormy stuff. Once I settled into to shooting, one very happy 3-year-old became my entire focus. She was playing in just her second soccer match ever, but you could tell she was in her element, even making a goal, as seen in the second photo. If the young lady needed a break from the rain, mom and dad were there with their golf-size umbrellas. By the end of the match, she was ready for a nap. Dad and mom assured me, she does take naps! This made an otherwise unproductive day a very good one. I love these slice of life moments.
