It was good to hear from my Bartlett friend Joyce White Tuesday evening, shown in the opening photo.   She wanted to let me know her church, Bartlett’s First United Methodist, would be putting together backpacks for  children from kindergarten to 5th grade before school starts next week.   I met the group this morning, hard at work loading  backpacks with school supplies, helping them get off to a good start.   Joyce, 88-years-young, put the backpack program together ten years ago with her now-late friend, Nellie Saage.    Church members and volunteers put together 230 backpacks.  Among the volunteers was the pastor of a St. John’s Lutheran Church in Bartlett, who came with his wife and their three children.   The youngest, 7-months-old, rode comfortably in her own baby backpack with mommy.   One 6-year-old boy who helped finished his task, then discovered an old piano in a nearby room, staying occupied for quite a while.  I include two photos of him at the end, the tighter one my favorite, but also offering a wider version, showing not only school supplies, but also that those little legs wouldn’t quite reach the pedals.  Yet!

“I like farming.  It’s in my blood.”

Those words spoken by Taylor-area farmer Arnold Raesz, 67, ring true.  

Raesz comes from a long line of farmers in Williamson County.   Older brothers Larry and Herbert  also continue to manage their own farms in the area.   Their father, Willie Raesz, Jr., and their grandfather, Willie Raesz, Sr., also farmed.   Arnold’s sons, Shaun, 47, and Steven, 45, work alongside their dad.  

According to the most recent findings by the Texas Department of Agriculture, the average age of Texas farmers is 59.  That number is expected to go up as fewer go into farming.   Nationally, the number of farms is now a little over 2 million. 

I was happy when recently running into Shaun near downtown Taylor,  “Are you coming out for corn harvest this year?” he  asked.   I said I hoped to.  

For two days and nights, I joined Arnold and his family as they began their three-week task of harvesting 3900 acres.   

During harvest, the work is constant.   There are no days off unless rain forces them to stop.  Saturday afternoon, that rain almost materialized, but remained north of their work area.  

Joining them this year are Shaun’s sons, Montgomery, 21, and Maverick, 18.   Also helping is Arnold’s nephew, Wyatt Raesz, 20, and Arnold’s  grandson, Rhett Richardson, almost 17.   Other helpers include Parker Randig and Jared Widmer. 

Because time is important, evening meals are brought directly to the fields each day by Arnold’s wife, Syble.   Workers power down their combines, trucks and tractors, using them as shady rest places before continuing their work, most nights going until 11p.m. or later.   Syble downplays her role, but I do not.   She’s an integral part of this undertaking.  

Arnold could’ve chosen other professions.  He’s an accomplished welder, as are Shaun and Steven.   He’s also helped build seven houses, building his own in 1987, where he still lives.   But the farm life, though hard, is rewarding.  

Shaun’s sons know first-hand the work of farmers.   They’ll likely take a different path.   Montgomery, a Texas A & M graduate, currently works in banking in Round Rock.   Younger brother Maverick is headed to Texas A&M this fall, where he’ll pursue a career in soil science.  

Arnold  is among the first farmers to harvest this season.   He’d like to be done before the summer heat gets worse.   We know it will.  

The farmland that’s been a staple in the Blackland Prairie area of East Williamson County for many years is transitioning as development comes.   Fields long used for planting are becoming subdivisions.   With the price of homes in the Austin area, I understand why people are moving this way, but my hope is that farming will be with us for a while.  

Finally, be patient when encountering slow-moving tractors and combines on our roads.  Getting from one field to another can be an arduous task.    Farmers have been around here before traffic was a thing.   Give them the respect they’ve earned.

While I never want harm to come to someone, or their property, I’ll admit to a fascination with storms.  The last two evenings in our area have had abundant turbulence.   That horse in the opening photo, from Sunday,  feels like an old friend.   When he sees a camera pointed his way, he reacts.  A cloud overhead meant nothing to him.   The second photo, from last evening, is a soaked field of prairie dirt in Wuthrich Hill.   The rest are from a couple hours ago.   Those skies got really dark for a while!   The sunflower fronting a cotton field along a dirt road was interesting.   The last two photos are taken along the same pasture.   I was knocked out by just how green that grass was.  Part of it might be sunlight shining on it at the right time of day, but it was intriguing.

From yesterday and this evening, a corn theme.   On Saturday, storm clouds formed , but moved on, leaving behind some nice early evening light near Rice’s Crossing.   That’s the opening photo, by far my top choice.   The other two photos were taken late this afternoon, when storm clouds stayed around for a while.   The second image is from Schwertner, the last one just east of Granger, where a favorite barn is included.   More things related to corn are coming soon, but not tonight.

An evening when another post was planned, but this serene  sunset scene came along.   A peaceful pasture tonight in Taylor, Texas.

These are photos taken Thursday evening.   As I was sitting here at my computer, I heard cracks of thunder outside.  Thinking there might be something to photograph, I headed outside for a look.  For several minutes, I stood in a field next to Taylor Middle School, looking north as a band of rain showers approached.  There were a few bolts of lightning, but never where I happened to be looking.  Still, the light quality was arresting.   I finally hopped back in the car and headed northeast.   The possibility of rain had left us, leaving behind layers of sweet clouds above a pond.   Before the evening wandering ended, I drove past a barn photographed a time or two, this one in southern Bell County.   It was a good way to end the night.

The evening began a little stormy, but near nightfall the sun made a nice show of things near Granger.  

It’s not often I have the opportunity to take early-morning photos, but a news assignment this morning in Georgetown provided a brief window of time  to stop at Jonah School, opened in 1922.   For a number of years it’s been recast as the Jonah Community Center.  The setting is nice, along Texas 29 between Taylor and Georgetown.  An old-growth tree is probably older than the school.   It was hazy this morning, probably due to fallout from the Western wildfires.  When the sun finally came up, it lacked clarity, but that’s okay.  The post opens with three pre-dawn photos, concludes with the sun,  including  a single stalk of milo, the fuzzy sun almost forming a heart.   That works.

At times I feel the need to cast my visual net a little further.   Monday evening, for instance, I hopped in the car, entered Milam County at Thorndale, then took a left and headed north.   Keep in mind, folks, these outings are often unplanned.   This site is  called “Andy’s Ramblings” for a reason.   About 4 miles out of Thorndale, a small sign pointed to St. John Church Cemetery.    I took a left, stopping at St. John Lutheran Church Cemetery in Detmold, a community established near the beginning of the 20th Century by German immigrants.   If you look up “Detmold,” you’ll find there’s a city by that name in Germany.   The Texas version could reliably be called an area these days.    St. John Church was once here, but moved to Thorndale in 1963.  The cemetery remains.   Detmold had a school in 1903, one teacher for 38 students, eventually folded into the Thorndale school system.   This brief history aside, I love finding roads like this one, adorned with thriving fields of milo.    Ones where I can take in the sights with little interruption from other vehicles.   That’s getting harder to find these days.

Driving around the last few days, I’ve noticed the golden warmth of our prairie corn crops.   These are fields just about ready to harvest.   In fact, I saw a farmer friend last week during my daily walk around Taylor.   “You coming out to take photos. this year?” he asked.   I told him I hope so.   His family begins very soon.    The rich color you see here isn’t the result of software trickery, just taking photos at the right time of day, late-day sunlight caressing the stalks.   I never grow tired of seeing this.