Often, when wandering around, I make photos, but let them sit on my computer’s desktop for a long time.   Sometimes a theme might rear its head.  Perhaps horses?  My equestrian knowledge is limited.    I don’t ride them, but they’re elegant subjects.   And smart.  Consider the opening photo, a horse wise enough to find shade on a hot Texas day.   Just some horses, friends.

Thankfully, most combines where I’ve been a passenger have been equipped with air conditioning.   Let’s hope that was true for this farmer harvesting milo last evening north of Norman’s Crossing,   I swear you can almost feel the heat radiated in that field.  The temperature was still over 100 degrees.  This heat wave and dry conditions are miserable for everyone in Texas.  As farm and ranch land gets scooped up for other purposes, we’ll likely see fewer scenes like this.   

There’s something soothing about observing a fly fisherman in his/her element, like watching this angler on the San Gabriel River in Georgetown.    I’ve never been a fancy fisherman, learning to fish in my Great-uncle Harry’s stock pond in Northeast Texas in the late-1950s.   It was a simple thing: a cane pole, line, cork and hook, usually with a worm attached.   But watching fly fishermen is a study in serenity.

A few months ago,  while taking photos at a festival in Georgetown, I spotted a lady walking to the town square toting a raccoon on her shoulder.   It was a natural thing to follow her for a while.   The lady is Kim Fross, a volunteer for All Things Wild Rehabilitation, , a group founded in 2012  that takes care of  sick or injured animals until they can be returned to their natural habitats. It happens that Kim is a fellow Taylor resident who became involved in 2015 when she brought an injured dove to the facility on Havelka Road.   If an animal’s injuries are too serious, they become ambassadors, permanent residents cared for throughout their lives.  And given names.    I spent a few hours there for the Williamson County Sun on Saturday  at their facility a little north of Georgetown, near Walburg.  While there I met fawns, a bobcat kitten, a crow named Edgar Allen Crow, a pelican named Beaudreaux, a gray fox named Bingo and  a Red-tailed hawk called Aries.   A few months ago they began conducting classes to educate the public about care of wild animals.   And where to get help, too.  This Saturday’s class was about raccoons.  The lady getting a kiss from a baby raccoon was the day’s teacher.  The other lady holding a 5-week-old raccoon is Helen Laughlin, a founder of this group.   The monthly classes are free, but you must sign up on their website to reserve a spot.  There were a lot of raccoons in their care right now, most getting to return to natural habitats someday.  River, a raccoon being cuddled by Kim in the last photo, is a permanent resident because of partial blindness.   All Things Wild Rehabilitation  is open every day from 9a.m. – 6p.m., where they accept lost or injured animals.   And yes, they gladly accept donations.

The first photo was taken Sunday evening, when the moon was at just over 95% visibility.  It’s my favorite of tonight’s offerings.  The other two were made in Coupland this evening, when the moon was at 99% visibility.   The moon is always wonderful.

Last night’s hazy Saharan dust sunset appeared above the mass of construction cranes over the Samsung Semiconductor plant being built in Taylor.  For years I’d drive by that spot, photographing a beautiful old barn, an impressive tree and lots of open land, replaced by a six million square-foot chip-making plant expected to open next year.  Three decades in metro-Atlanta gave us our fill of unchecked development.   It seems to have found us here.   While things have been disappearing on the Blackland Prairie for years, projects like this will hasten its departure.   Subjects to document are fading.

Photos taken during that long road trip.    Atlanta, Texas, 25 miles south of Texarkana, was the only Atlanta I thought of when growing up in the 50s and 60s.   My father was raised there.   Family members are buried in Atlanta’s Pinecrest Cemetery, where daddy taught me to drive when I was 12-years-old.  The car was a stick shift, a 1952 Chevy with three on the column.   But the photos offered here focus on downtown Atlanta.  Depending on your source, the community was formed in either 1871 or 1872.  When daddy was growing up there, the population was a little over 5,000.  The number of residents is much the same today.  In the mid-late 1800s, farm families moved west from Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas, settling in Northeast Texas.  Atlanta, Texas was likely named after the big one in Georgia.  Also in area: Dekalb, Texas, Douglassville, Texas (different spelling), Marietta, Texas.   I guess these were nods to their earlier homes.   Every time I pass through, American flags are flying all over downtown.  They were this trip, too. The State Theatre,  opened in 1941, has been closed since the 1990s.  The theater seated over 700 people.   As unchecked growth continues near Taylor, places like this are becoming increasingly attractive.  

They say  Saharan dust is moving through our area again.  I can’t say if it affects air quality, but it does add an interesting element to our late-day skies on the Blackland Prairie.  This is at the Walburg area farm of a good friend who gave his blessing  in  allowing a camera’s presence anytime a little inspiration is needed.  Last night was one of those.   The windmill, as mentioned in previous posts, is new, adding elegance to an already beautiful site.  My friend enjoys taking an occasional swim into that pond.  The water is very clear.   Many refer to the water as a tank, but calling it a pond seems more fitting.  It’s a gentle place.

Atlanta State Park (the Atlanta in Texas) was one of my stops this week while making my way back home.   Nestled in the Northeast Texas Piney Woods, it’s an atmospheric destination in Cass County.  When growing up in nearby Texarkana, I spent a good bit of time at Lake Texarkana, renamed Lake Wright Patman in the 1970s to honor a longtime member of Congress from our area.  A portion of the lake courses through the park.  Since I needed to make the drive back to Taylor on this day, my time there was limited, but it was serene.   As a kid, I spent a lot of time on the Cass County farm of my Great-Uncle Harry, who taught me how to fish in the stock pond when I was about 6 or 7.   One morning, Uncle Harry suggested we stroll behind the pond, where an expansive grove of tall pines filled the sky, soft pine needles underfoot.   “This is my church,”  my mostly quiet  uncle told me.   I completely understand that.

Another photograph from that recent long road trip, a horse basking in late-afternoon light, not far from the only Atlanta I knew growing up.  As one of my great college professors mentioned, you can’t take many photos from 35,000 feet up.   While some find long drives tedious, many photographers like to slow down and see a little more.    Air travel gets you there sooner, but you pay for that.