I didn’t travel too far this evening, just up the road to the grain elevators at Williamson County Grain.  A Waxing Gibbous moon, 95.8% visibility, added depth to our Texas skies.   Those pesky power lines, mostly a visual negative,  weren’t too bad this time.

“Almost, Maine,” a 2004 play by John Cariani, opens tonight on the Springer Memorial Stage at the Georgetown Palace.   While musicals are on hold during the pandemic, the Palace continues to bring quality theater to Central Texas.   This play, later made into a novel by the writer, is a series of nine small plays examines life and relationships in  a mythical town in Maine.   The six actors are busy, taking on 22 parts.   Each actor wears a see-through face mask.  During the play, which runs through April 25, all audience members are required to wear masks, too.  And socially-distanced seating  is observed.   These are just a few of the scenes.  As usual, I post more photos of Palace productions on social media.  

One of the first churches I photographed was Taylor’s Immanuel Lutheran Church, just west of town, along County Road 401.  This past year, I’ve been remiss.   If it weren’t for the pandemic, I’d have photographed their annual Live Nativity.   Needing to find something close to home this week,  my camera ended up there, also spending some quiet time in their cemetery, behind the church on a gentle hill.  Immanuel Lutheran first adopted a constitution in 1888, dedicating their first sanctuary in 1894.   A fire eventually took it away.   The current church was  dedicated in August 1916.   For many years, services were only conducted in German, but English services were added in 1929.     Going through old cemeteries is like walking through history.   In the late-1800s-early 1900s, a number of the graves were of children.   I find this to be common throughout the many cemeteries where I wander.   It was a different time, some of it sad.   We move on.

Meandering around Monday evening, I stopped at Granger Brethren Church for a few photos.  Its  red doors have always gotten my attention.   A young man said hello as I read an historical marker.  He and his family are members here.  We had a good visit.  Then I met his wife, and their puppy, 13-week-old Ladybird.   “Would you like to see inside?”  the young lady asked.   Well, of course.   She had a key.   This church is the oldest Brethren congregation in Texas.   The church has deep Czech roots.   The Unity of the Brethren, separating from the Catholic Church,  was founded in the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1457.  Czech immigrants began meeting in a schoolhouse a few miles east of Granger in the early-1880s, forming a congregation in 1892.  The sanctuary of the current church was completed in 1903.  My sincere thanks to the lady who allowed a peek inside.  The church is an active congregation today.

It was supposed to be storming by the time I made these photos near Granger, Texas tonight.   It wasn’t, but the clouds were inspiring.  The stormy weather may still come, but I hope to sleep through it.

Sunset near our home in Taylor, Texas this evening.   Like them or not, windmills are subjects I’ll return to time and time again.   They are wound into the fabric of where I live.   They merit my attention.

Spring began this morning.  This sunrise image was taken as the sun rose over Jonah School, now the Jonah Community Center.   The school has been here since 1922.  I’m glad it continues to find purpose.

Needing to relieve some stress tonight, I found my way to Coupland, spending a few good minutes at the sculpture garden created by Jim Huntington.  These large and beautiful pieces are made of stone and metal, most weighing several thousand pounds.   The way good light reacts to these pieces is interesting.   In the early 1990s, looking for a new area to live, pointed his finger at a map and found Coupland, a community in southern Williamson County with a pretty steady population of around 300.   Raised in Elkhart, Indiana, Jim spent years in New York and San Francisco before landing in this laid-back community.  Those are cactus plants, not sculptures, pictured in the silhouette.  And that’s a Waxing Crescent moon, 35.8% visible, shining beyond a piece in the last photo.   If you visit Coupland, his sculpture garden is easy to find.  Coupland’s not crowded.

In a post last week, I mistakenly identified a grape hyacinth as a Texas Bluebonnet. Call it a senior moment.    Let’s correct that error with this post.   Bluebonnets have begun to sprout in Central Texas.  These photo are from a couple of places in Georgetown, but the majority (the first six) are from a little family cemetery in Circleville.  I found this cemetery quite by accident a few years ago.  Driving along a nice little county road, a few bluebonnets peeked out from atop a hill.  Getting out of the car for a closer look, there was the cemetery, adorned with bluebonnets.  So far, the well-kept burial site isn’t covered with flowers, but it’s looking mighty pretty just the same.  As if you need a reminder, rattlesnakes like wildflowers, too.

Sometimes, when  preferred photos  are available, I’ll let a few  images take a back seat. Often as not, they end up sitting on my crowded computer desktop for months.   That’s what you see here tonight, including a couple tree photos from January and February.  And a horse grazing in mid-January.   Just stuff, friends.   Now I can continue to file these old things.