“I was driving a tractor when I was 7-years-old,” farmer Larry Svehlak mentioned while I rode along in his combine this week. 

Svehlak, 70, is a Granger native who’s lived in Taylor for decades.   He’s tilled the soil for a long time,  but he’s retiring after finishing this year’s corn harvest.   With help from his brother Augie, 71, they’re making their way through 450 acres of corn crop in Granger and Weir.   

Svehlak was born into a farming family.   The Williamson County Sun profiled him in a May 1993 story, months after his father, August Svehlak Jr. died of  a massive heart attack.   For years, Larry helped his father on the farm, but also held down a full time job at the Alcoa plant in Milam County.    After losing his father, Larry continued to work at Alcoa, but also became a full-time farmer.  In 2007 he retired from Alcoa, turning his attention to farming, but also collecting and restoring vintage Oliver tractors.  

Larry’s grandfather, August Svehlak, came to this country via Galveston in 1913 from what was then Czechoslovakia.   His grandfather settled in Granger,  soon learning  to love the Blackland Prairie soil. 

On our initial visit, I drove up to a field being harvested in Granger to find Larry’s wife, Marie, attempting to get her husband’s attention as a small, but spreading fire erupted in the field.   The fire, likely caused by leaves, combined with intense late-afternoon heat, was soon extinguished by a crew from the Granger Volunteer Fire Department.   Larry went back to work after the smoke cleared.

Svehlak remembers being raised in a farm family before the era of high-powered combines capable of harvesting large areas like the ones you see today.  He and his siblings, including Augie, James and Sharon, learned to do things more simply.   “When we were kids,” he explained,” we pulled the corn by hand.”   At the time, farm crops didn’t extend so far.   The typical crop areas were maybe 100 acres, sometimes a little more.   They picked prickly cotton bolls by hand, too.  That’s hard work.

He’s looking forward to retirement.  

“We want to travel more,” Larry says, adding they’d like to some day visit the Czech Republic.  Marie was also raised in a Czech family in the area.   It would be the first time for both.    “And go to WinStar!”   He and Marie enjoy traveling to the WinStar World Casino, located in Thackerville, Oklahoma,  a few times a year.   Plus there’s his collection of Oliver tractors to keep him busy.   I didn’t have time to include the collection for this piece, but will follow up soon. 

He’ll also have more time to spend with his daughter Tara Svehlak Huber, her husband Travis and their daughters Brynley, 10, and Parker, 9, both avid gymnasts like their mom. 

Larry will be “retired,” but I think he’ll stay busy with things that matter.

Anyone who’s followed my site (or social media) for a while knows about an unofficial project to document the disappearing Blackland Prairie, a work in progress since 2009.    The opening photo is a farmhouse photographed in late-2019.   It’s a subject I’ve often captured.   This week, on a drive along this road,  I was caught off guard (but not surprised) when seeing the old homestead being dismantled.   Every past photo has been taken from the road.   I don’t go on private property without permission.   This week, however, I determined to find the property owner to see if it would be okay to go on the property.   The owner was fine with that, urging me along before dark.    This week’s photos were made as the day’s last light snuck away.   This is an obvious example of things leaving us, but there are others through the years.   I’m sad to see its departure from our landscape.   The views are changing.

For the past few weeks, when seeing cornfields, I’d sometimes stop for a photo.   In East Williamson County, Texas, corn can’t be ignored.   The fields of the wispy crop spread for miles and miles across the prairie.   The corn is ready for harvest, mainly  meant for livestock, but most farmers set aside an acre or two for sweet corn.  It’s mighty fine.    The harvest  work has begun.  Over the next few weeks those tall stalks will be cleared, returning us to a different landscape. These are just a few  scenes I saw on those drives.   Even the intense Texas heat can’t stop its progress.

Greg Foster, a longtime Georgia friend, was on a long road trip with his son Jack en route to points west.    Greg touched base to let me know they’d be stopping at Taylor’s Louie Mueller BBQ.  It was good to see an old friend.   Greg, a Griffin, Georgia native, was one of the go-to photographers for incredible photos published in Sports Illustrated, but we were fortunate to have him available for assignments at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  I was thankful for a friend’s visit as they continued their westward adventure.

After taking photos of Oreo, Deby and Mike Lannen’s newest  Texas Longhorn, I stayed around a few minutes longer to take some silhouettes of Crybaby, who seemed to crave the camera’s attention.  I happily obliged.  While watching Crybaby, Mike quietly mentioned Rocky’s presence very near the camera.  Rocky is Oreo’s daddy.  After checking me out for a minute he moved onto flirting with Crybaby.   At least I think it was flirting!   I love Texas Longhorns.

Any commentary would be a moot point tonight, my friends.   It’s simply a sunset in Bell County, Texas.  

Taylor friends Deby and Mike Lannen have been raising Texas Longhorns for years.   When there’s a newborn, Deby will make sure I know about the new family member.   The most recent addition is Oreo, only weeks old, born to Lacie and Rocky.   Deby’s granddaughter named the calf Oreo because she was black and white at birth.   Recently, the black has become brown, but she’s still Oreo.   It took forever for Oreo go get close to mama, but it finally happened just before the day’s last light faded away.   She almost looks black and white in that photo, but it’s just how light works.

These photos were taken during  the  last few  morning walks in Taylor, each made at Bull Branch Park.   Bull Branch Creek courses through the park.   When I can get photos without an excessive amount of algae, it’s a good day.   All shots were taken with an older model Olympus OM-D E-M5, equipped with a Lumix 45-150mm zoom.   In the micro 4/3 world, that translates to 90-300mm.   It’s nice to travel light while walking.  

When we moved to Taylor in 2009, our attraction to the town 32 miles northeast of Austin was the simple fact that it looked like a town, not suburban sprawl.  We had that for almost three decades in metro-Atlanta.   When we first returned, however, I was still a pretty active road cyclist.   Scenes like the one offered this evening  put me in a good state of mind.    There was room to spread out.   I soon determined this area had to be documented. Tonight’s cyclists probably know that feeling.   I hope we get to keep some of our space.

When we moved to the area in summer 2009, I have this memory of driving east from Hutto on U.S. 79, then seeing a beautiful little church atop a hill on my right.   That was Immanuel Lutheran Church, one I’ve since photographed probably hundreds of times since then.  A former pastor once showed me a Texas Monthly edition adorned with this church as its cover.   Immanuel Lutheran Church was formed by German immigrants in the mid-1880s.   Five acres was purchased for $100 in 1892.  Two years later, a church was built on the site for $1525.00  On January 1, 1916 a fire destroyed the original church.   Another sanctuary, the one pictured here, opened in August of that year.   The first burial in their cemetery, behind the church,  occurred in 1889.   The historic site, along County Road 401, just west of Taylor, will soon have a new neighbor, the Samsung Semiconductor factory, scheduled to open sometime next year.    Even now, I still see that little church on drives from Hutto, but it’s hard to not see the other thing.   Growth is inevitable, but are we evolving?   The question remains.