On every opening day of school assignment, I’ve run into traffic problems, but not this time on my visit to Georgetown’s Cooper Elementary School.   As someone who lived in metro-Atlanta for almost three decades, I’m averse to crowds.   This was nice.  I particularly enjoyed taking photos of 4-year-old identical twin sisters.   They were a hoot!   And it was nice to see the positive messages written in chalk by teachers and staff.   This post would’ve been made sooner, but chasing storm photos took a little time.  

As this is written, it’s raining in Williamson County, Texas.  Storms rolled through this afternoon as a young farmer worked to clear stalks from a recently-harvested field.   Included is an old hand shack photographed quite a few times.   Nearby, a lightning strike set a pasture on fire.   The subdivision in that last photo would not have been affected by the fire, but it was a good angle to show the smoke.

Some farm-related landscapes are what I have for this post.    Occasionally, I’ll happen on a scene that does more than I can to describe  in words this area of the Blackland Prairie.   The opening photo might one of those.   While the lighting isn’t as soothing as the other two images, it has purpose.   As a gigantic chip facility and its subsidiaries begin moving into our area, my guess is you’ll see more development stripping away the rural character of an area known for farming and ranching.   Things change, don’t they?

Are these photos too loud?   Sunsets here can be that way.   These two photos were made in the area around Thrall, Texas.   I continue to be fascinated by cotton.

Last night’s skies merited a brief stop before calling it a night.

When I was growing up in Northeast Texas in the 50s and 60s, the only Atlanta I knew was in Cass County, Texas, twenty-five miles south of Texarkana.    My father was raised there.   It’s a sweet little town, keeping its charm intact.   When daddy was growing up there, the population was a little over 5,000.   In 2022, it’s still a little over 5,000.   A few towns in this Piney Woods area are likely named after their Georgia counterparts, sometimes changing the spelling of the original.   There’s a Marietta, Texas, a Dekalb, Texas (not county) and a  Douglassville, Texas.   Depending on what you read, Atlanta, Texas was formed in either 1871 or 1872.   The young fellow painting the mural is sticking with 1872.   After World War II, daddy moved 25 miles north, to Texarkana, where I was raised.  He was a theater projectionist, beginning at age 11.   I love old theaters.  Maybe the one here will be recast someday.  Daddy was mostly an Oldsmobile guy, always driving to Atlanta to purchase one from Ed Hammock Motors.  That appears to be long-gone now.   Comedian Ellen DeGeneres was born in Metairie, Louisiana, but graduated from Atlanta High School in 1976, making her a proud Atlanta Rabbit!  I’m hoping to do more photos of small towns.   Much of the inspiration for that comes from Atlanta, Georgia friend Charles Seabrook, another retiree from the Atlanta Journal & Constitution.  Charlie is doing a wonderful job of documenting small-town life in his area.

If you’re driving along U.S. 79 from Hutto to Taylor in recent years, a look to your right would provide a view of Immanuel Lutheran Church, along County Road 401 in Taylor.   The little church on the hill is quite close to the Samsung chip facility under construction.   I choose not to show the construction cranes looming nearby, but the pilot of that aircraft has a good view.    Is all change good?   Time will tell.

Sunset nears over Christ Lutheran Church in Noack, Texas.   I’ll leave it right there.

We left Taylor a little before 6 tonight, heading east.   A few counties away, we found evidence of rain.  We need some of this throughout the state.  Beautiful moisture.

Cotton season kind of snuck up on me this year, but I managed to find a few images while wandering through areas near Coupland, Beyersville, Noack and Granger.    These are some from the last few evenings.   Even in a drought year, cotton photographs well.