After a day of mostly pursuing flood-related photos, tonight, nearing the conclusion of autumn, I found a field not far from home.   It’s on a county road I seldom travel, mainly because it’s bumpy, full of potholes.  But you know what?   It’s a quiet road, one where I can stop the car, put it in park, whip out the tripod and record what’s there with little disturbance from other motorists.   It doesn’t always work out like that, but it did this evening.  Here’s the thing, friends.  I feel compelled to document this tiny slice of the Blackland Prairie.   Although I grew up in Northeast Texas, with its Piney Woods (which I love), since leaving Atlanta, Georgia in 2009, I’ve become enamored with these spaces.    In the little over nine years we’ve been here, however, the. developers have begun to snatch up bits of this wonderful ocean of land.   There’s a compulsion, then, to document what’s here before it’s too late.   It’s only a small slice of Texas, but it’s one I love.  

It rained and rained Friday evening into Saturday morning around Williamson County, Texas.   Areas of flooding occurred throughout Georgetown and East Williamson County.    I’m not sure about the damage incurred, but hopefully our area residents are okay.    These photos were taken this morning for my friends at the Williamson County Sun.

Since we’re in Central Texas, are we to believe our calendars?   Technically, this is the last night of summer, but one suspects we’ll have a few more weeks of warm weather.   Tonight, however, we have stormy weather, expected to follow us into Saturday.   These are my impressions of the area around Granger Lake tonight.  The skies were alive with lightning.  Alas, I didn’t get any streaks, but am okay with this outcome.   These are another reason a tripod comes in handy.  That bright spot of light in the opening photo is our wonderful moon.   Even with dissonant skies, it managed to make itself known. 

You know where this is, right?   As I’ve stated before, the rookery at Murphy Park in Taylor, Texas is among my favorite places to study with a camera.  It doesn’t hurt that it’s about a mile from our house.   This one was taken about 45 minutes or so after sunset last night, the clouds beginning to roll in.   The weather forecasters got it right this time.   We’ve had rain throughout the afternoon and evening, with more on the way.   Or so they say.   While the moisture is nice, what’s even nicer?  Our temperatures go down.    Fall officially begins Saturday.   We could use the cool, at least for a while.  Oh, and for you geeks:  camera exposure, ten seconds, f/7.1, ISO 250.  With tripod, of course.   Carry on.

After finishing some work in Bartlett, Texas late yesterday afternoon I drove around town a little.  You never know what you’ll see, right?  Driving east toward the town’s center, the sun’s warm but bright rays shone down on First United Methodist Church, giving its already-beautiful stained glass windows a new reason to get noticed.   Some youngsters in the scout troop meeting in the church basement saw this weird old dude snapping away and ran back inside to let their leader know.   The scoutmaster, recognizing me from previous get-togethers, let out a breath and smiled.   The rest of the photos are this and that.   The rusty-looking little structure is home to the town’s once-a-week newspaper, the Tribune-Progress.  One of the local folks mentioned the paper still circulates, but the publisher now mostly works from home.   I like that the building’s still there though.  That’s followed by the remnants of a big old house west of town, covered by trees.   And one last shot downtown,  the evening light filtering through the second-floor window of what was once a dentist’s office.  I’m pretty sure nobody’s getting their molars fixed there these days.   This and that, friends, from a town of about 1700 people on the Blackland Prairie. 

It’s no secret that I love photographing the birds at Taylor’s rookery: egrets, herons, cormorants, and yes, even ducks.  Just observing their aerial ballet is mesmerizing.  Last evening, , on the way home, I encountered some wonderful flight patterns in our Taylor skies as a couple of friends perhaps came close to avian ballet  as they navigated their motorized paragliders through our Blackland Prairie sky.   While always fearful of high places, somehow this appeals to me, a peaceful dance in the clouds.   

Much of my Sunday was spent documenting the annual church bazaar in New Corn Hill, Texas, at Holy Trinity Catholic Church.   The folks there do things right, with plenty of fried chicken and barbecue with all the fixings, polka music, a raffle, both live and silent auctions, a kolache bake sale, children’s games and a cake walk, which leads this post.   For those in the dark, in a cake walk, a wheel adorned with numbers is spun around.  If the number where it stops corresponds with the number selected by participants, they win a cake.   I loved watching the expressions of two brothers, ages 5 and 3, as they tried their luck.   The young fellow on the left did win a cake. Good for him!  The others images are a bit of this and that, including some photos of the sanctuary at the church, an eloquent and serene place.   The final photo in this post was taken in a storage room adjacent to the choir loft.  Those shrouded items are Christmas trees.  The ladder at left goes to the bell tower.  It’s an odd photo, but then again, so is the photographer. 

There’s something about watching a cat that’s calming.  Lucy, our cat now in her early-teens, enjoys peering out the window of our bedroom during the first light of day.  When we adopted her, her front claws had  been removed.  Thus, she’s a house cat and mostly seems fine with that.   In recent years, however, removing a cat’s claws is often viewed as a cruel amputation.  I’d agree with that.  Advice, friends:  if you bring a cat into your home, be sure you want her/him, but leave them intact.  Your furniture isn’t a living thing.

These are some photos I’d planned to toss, but decided to post them tonight since what I’d like to go with here isn’t ready for publication.   The photos here were taken a few nights back around Granger Lake.   It was a somewhat stormy evening, one where I’d hoped to get a few lightning streaks.  That didn’t pan out.   Looking at these selection now, they’re not so bad.  So here they are, even one in black-and-white.

Each September the little town of Bartlett, Texas, with around 1700 residents, holds its Bartlett Friendship Fest. It’s a small festival, including a parade, food, a barbecue cook-off, vendors and games, but more than anything, it’s a time for folks to simply visit, like the 4-year-old cousins that open the photos in this post.  They’re repeated at the conclusion.   I like that the Bartlett High band, mascots, football team and cheerleaders participated in the parade.   I really really like Eva, a cat who apparently loves strolling on a leash, or sitting on her mom’s shoulders.  What an interesting feline she is!   A Jeep-owners club from Austin took part, showing folks what they could do with their 4-wheel-drive babies.  But the key word here:  friendship.   We need a bit more of that, don’t we?   These were taken for my friends at the Williamson County Sun.