Recently I noticed the addition of lights on bridge spanning Lake Drive in Taylor.  A pathway there connects Bull Branch Park and Murphy Park.  Whoever thought to add this light to the trail  is to be commended.   While I noticed it for a few nights,  one night a young man was fishing in Bull Branch Creek.   It looked nice.  As most know, I’m a big fan of night photography.

It’s a windmill photographed a lot, but in recent years encroaching development creates a chaotic landscape.    I still like the windmill, if not the surroundings.

From this evening in Coupland, Texas.  Sunset over St Peter’s Church of Coupland.

One of my walks took place at a park in Georgetown, others are from Taylor.  If the heat doesn’t lessen, perhaps these walks will be shorter.   Summer is by far the most awful season in Texas.

Sunset nears in Beyersville, Texas tonight, a companion to the earlier sunrise photo in Jonah.

“I like your photos because they’re quiet” was from someone I was just meeting a couple of years ago.    He’d been seeing some of my photography in the Williamson County Sun.   After more than five decades of making photos this was (and is) the best compliment ever received.   While every photo made  doesn’t qualify, quietude is a daily goal.    Presented here is one taken at sunrise in Jonah, Texas on Thursday.   It’s an old-growth pecan tree resting comfortably by the Jonah Community School, now finding new purpose.    The structure has been here since 1922.  It’s a guess, but that tree is a bit older.  As the winter months come the tree’s leaves go away, leaving behind a tree with very good bones.  I’ve snapped pictures of this tree a few times over the years.  Hopefully, other opportunities will come along.    For now, however, a quiet sunrise and a regal tree.

And one more tonight, photographs taken this evening during Taylor’s annual Patriot Day parade and observance held at Heritage Square Park.  This 9/11 anniversary observance has been held here since 2002.    Reverend Sela Finau, pastor at Taylor’s First United Methodist Church, gave the closing benediction.

Since 2011, first responders in Georgetown have commemorated the 9/11 tragedies with a Memorial Stair Climb, held at Birkelbach Field.  Firefighters, police officers and a few family and friends march up and down the stadium steps to page homage to first responders responding to the World Trade Center attacks in New York City.   No other words are needed.

For the past few years a visit to a cotton gin has been on my visual radar.   That gin has been Waterloo Gin, just east of Taylor.  The weather is producing some pretty good cotton this season.   Gin co-owners Clement Strmiska and David Woollett  and their crew will no doubt be busy.   If another cotton gin is operational this year I’d be glad to take a few photos there, but in the last couple or so years Waterloo has been the only one doing this  work in Williamson County, Texas.   These are from last evening, Clement resting in his truck at the end of a long day.  After the gin powered down, Rocky, the little dog in the last photo, surveyed the darkened area.

When September rolls around it’s a good bet the egrets and ibis at Taylor’s Murphy Park rookery  will move on until Spring.   With that in mind, I stopped by there for a few photographs last evening.   Once they’re gone, we’ll have plenty of year-round residents nearby, including herons , cormorants, cattle egrets, geese and ducks.    A federally-protected species, these Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets are  a visual treat.