It’s been raining pretty much all day in our area of Central Texas.   On the way back from an errand in Austin I took the back roads home.   It always beats the dang freeway.    Nothing special here, just things that found their way in front of a lens.   The only recognizable place is (of course) New Sweden Evangelical Lutheran Church.  Plus barns, a tractor and a nice tree. That last barn isn’t far from the future site of Samsung.

The Lighting of the Square was held tonight in Georgetown, Texas.    It was an uplifting night.

While I didn’t have a specific Thanksgiving assignment this morning, it was still a good day to wander around.  Note that these images are presented in order of information given.   Hoping for a sunrise photo at the historic Jonah School (now a community center), I encountered a very cloudy morning instead.  The elegant tree still looks good, particularly now that it’s losing some of those warm weather leaves.   I like seeing its bones.   After leaving Jonah, I stopped by the San Gabriel River about fifteen minutes after sunrise.  The clouds were hanging on.   A few minutes later, the sun tried to peek out as I drove through the I.O.O.F. City Cemetery in Georgetown.   Passing through Georgetown’s Old Town historic district, I met Mario, earning a bit of holiday money raking an abundance of leaves about 45 minutes after sunrise.    There’s no Turkey Trot road race in Georgetown this year, but I did notice members of The Georgetown Triathletes group as they passed over the river along the Austin Avenue bridge.  Finally, I met a turkey-clad couple, enjoying a morning run together with their daughters.   They’d run in past Turkey Trots, but this morning they ran from home.   You can’t hold back a determined turkey!

Just some photos taken tonight at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Wuthrich Hill, Texas.  I’ve photographed this church a few times a year, beginning in 2009, the year we returned to Texas.   At the time, I didn’t know that one of my UT-Austin photo professors, Frank Armstrong, had also photographed it quite a few years before.   It was a good night for blue light.    Sometimes I take time to photograph the church’s pond.   It’s not a stock pond.  No livestock wanders on the church property.  It’s just a nice little body of water.  

Presented here are a few images made Sunday night as I wandered around my little town of Taylor.    A few months ago, an elected official outside Taylor told me “Taylor’s getting ready to explode.”    He meant growth, of course.    The announcement this afternoon of Samsung’s $17 billion chip factory to be built  here might bring it our way.    Although quite a few have expressed trepidation about Samsung’s arrival, I’ll take a wait and see approach.   Chips are a huge deal in today’s world.   For me, the most negative thing is the prospect that Taylor might lose its small-town appeal, one of the main reasons we chose it when moving from Atlanta.    I haven’t seen the latest census figures, but am guessing we’re around 20,000 right now.  That will change.   But what  about the impact on the poorer residents in our town?   Will gentrification make it harder for some?   I remember East Austin when I was a student at UT in the early-70s.   It was a working person’s neighborhood back then.   Now many are being taxed out of the only place they’ve ever known as young families with deep pockets dig in.    Let’s hope we find a way for Taylor  to grow, but be compassionate to the less fortunate.

Many photographers will return many times to the same subject.   This tree in the Beyersville area is among them.   It rests on a hill along a picturesque dirt road.    It’s getting harder to find images. without power lines here.   Growth is inevitable.

Some photos from a little east of Granger on a pleasant Monday evening on the Blackland Prairie.   For whatever reason, I’m thinking of the 1966 song, “Monday, Monday,” released in March 1966 by the Mamas & the Papas, written by John Phillips.  If you’re too young to know the music, look it up and listen.  You’ll be transported on this Monday evening.

Knowing of my interest in barns, a friend recently let me know about one he found interesting. I was impressed.   The venerable structure rests on a pretty piece of land north of Hutto,  one of  the fastest-growing cities in our area.   Since returning to Texas in 2009, I’ve tried to photograph things  fading away from the landscape.   Barns are high on the list.   Off the top of my head I know of four now gone.   As growth continues in our area outside Austin, more bits of history will go away.   The barn in these photos is still being utilized.   Our area is changing.   While I understand that, it doesn’t mean I enjoy seeing it happen. 

On one of my recent daily walks in Taylor, I took notice of  these huge leaves nestled by a pond in Murphy Park.   I’d seen them before, but they were always some shade of green.   Lately, they’ve been evolving, transitioning from green to vibrant yellows.   I decided to go back for a few photos.   The way light reacts to these plants is engaging, one of nature’s gifts.    They are truly wonderful little landscapes.   But what are they called?   I stopped by a City of Taylor office to inquire.  The folks touched base with one of their botanical experts, who said they were Pontederia plants.  With that to go on, I looked them up, too.   They might also be called Pontederia Cordata, also Pickerel Weeds.   A few social media friends are wizards at this stuff.  We’ll see what they have to say.   But whatever they are, I think they’re exceptional.

A few friends were out in the wee hours of Friday morning documenting the lunar eclipse.  Yours truly was not.  As it was, I was running on about 3 hours’ sleep.   At 3a.m. I was sawing logs.    In its place I’m offering photos of this morning’s moonset, as seen from Wuthrich Hill, Texas, just east of Taylor.   And because I can’t punish myself quite enough, I went out this evening for the moonrise in Taylor.   That evening moon just popped into the sky, a few minutes sooner than expected as I watched traffic along U.S. Highway 79 between Hutto and Taylor.   Before calling it a night, I made some photos along Taylor’s Main Street, where Christmas lights are already adding a little happiness to the season.    This morning’s moon. was 100% visibility, a Beaver Moon.  By this evening it was in its Waning Gibbous phase, 99.6% visibility.   It’s all good.