Georgetown’s Red Poppy Festival was canceled last Spring because of the pandemic, but replaced this weekend with Popptoberfest, a three-day event beginning tonight on the town square. Visitors gathered to enjoy the music of Dysfunkshun Junkshun, very danceable stuff.   These photos were taken there tonight.   The festival continues through Sunday.   Saturday night musical guests include Brave Combo and Dale Watson.  

A busy night ahead, just two simple photos taken recently in the North Williamson County area around Walburg.   The barn, of course, isn’t new, but it’s a new one for my cameras.  

Wandering along a favorite county road in Coupland tonight I happened onto a young lady getting photos taken for her upcoming Quinceanera celebration.   The photographer onsite graciously allowed my presence for the few short minutes I was there.   This bridge was featured in the beginning and conclusion of the 2003 movie “Secondhand Lions,” filmed at several locations in the area.    Just one of those slice of life things happening all around us every single day.   For what it’s worth, I know there’s a tilda over the second “n” in Quinceanera, but couldn’t determine how to place it! 

It’s a really stormy night in Central Texas, but rather than post a nasty weather photo, how about another windmill?   I photographed this fine example a few evenings ago.   It’s the same windmill in both images, taken from different angles.  It’s doubtful that very many of these windmills are actually functioning, but they certainly add a lot to a landscape.  

Just a couple from recent outings in my area.   Granted, I tend to focus on farmers quite a lot, but consider them important to this country’s structure.   One image shows a farmer raking a recently-harvested field, kicking up a lot of dust in the process.   Then another farmer traversing a farm-to-market road en route to his next field.  Simple images, nothing more. 

I see quite a few beautiful skyline photos among my talented photographer colleagues.    For many of us on the Blackland Prairie, this is our skyline.   I’ll leave it at that.

Zion Lutheran Church in Sandoval is a beautiful little church, here since 1932.   The congregation is much older, forming in 1893.    I don’t take photos there often, mainly due to a really unsightly water tower sitting right next to the church.   A sign on the fence outside the tower tells us it’s Southwest Milam County Water Supply.   Whatever prompted Milam County to place a water tower right next to a special place is beyond me.   At any rate, it’s still a lovely church.   Sandoval, now folded into the Thrall area, was at one time a community in its own right.  It had a post office, general store, a saloon, dance hall, a rodeo arena and a bowling alley .   The church, and a cemetery,  remains  a focal point.    As for the spider?  I find them fascinating.

After last night’s post, a very sad one, I decided to go back to doing the landscape/pictorial imagery I love so much on the Blackland Prairie.    These two were made last evening as I wandered a little east of Granger, Texas.    I’m still thinking about those poor dogs though.  And their families.

I’ve purposely stayed away from posting anything about the Georgetown  fire late Saturday night at Ponderosa Pet Resort that took the lives of 75 dogs.   This post won’t get into the issue of business permits, or the fire’s cause.    The pain these families must be going through is beyond my imagination.   To many of us, dogs are not just pets, they are integral to the fabric of our families.  These photos were made during a vigil for the lost dogs  held Tuesday night at San Gabriel Park.  Two women are pictured holding photos of their lost dogs, Bear, and Sammy. As I age, covering any kind of hard news gets more depressing.   I decided to post after careful thought, but mostly because a woman who lost her dog in the fire  stopped to thank me for covering the vigil, enough reason to share what I saw. Any journalist who can cover this kind of story without empathy needs to find something else to do.

The Autumnal Equinox is here.   Even though the calendar tells us it’s fall, that doesn’t mean an end to hot weather in Texas.  But luck was with us in Central Texas today.   This morning’s temperature hovered around 60, with just 44% humidity.   Knowing a cool day awaited us, I managed to get up and going well before dawn this morning, stopping for a few minutes to watch the sun come up over a portion of the San Gabriel River as it begins to flow just east of the Granger Lake dam.   Light adorned with orange, yellow and blue hovered over a dark swath of Blackland Prairie, but the river was sparkling as it meandered through the countryside.  The first photo was taken 25 minutes before sunrise, the second about 15 minutes before.   When the sun finally came up at 7:20, it was a bright hot ball, a little intense for first light, but still nice.   Preparing to leave, in the western sky above Granger Lake the Waning Gibbous moon, still close to full at 97.3% visibility, was a nice thing to see above trees saturated with early-morning warmth.    The moon photo is about 20 minutes after sunrise.  After that, the light’s delicate touch became harsher.   I headed home.