Yesterday when I woke up and opened the windows I noticed a change...There was no dew on the windows. It's been months since the windows were clear first thing in the morning. When I walked outside it felt different...Could be we are getting that preview of what's to come. When…
I used to drive by this site and not know the significance. Good news! An amazing prairie remnant has been found in Deer Park. It is called the College Park Prairie, named after an adjacent elementary school. This is a 53-acre prairie pothole remnant with a full complement of pimple…
Temperature 97.9 °F Feels Like 116 °F That's what it says on the Weather Underground page for my place right now. I spent 2+ hours this morning riding the John Deer around the yard today and it was hot. But right now... Three hours later... It's just ridiculous. Now, granted, feels like 116° beats…
There’s something about Texas – if I didn’t live here, I wouldn’t live here. Juanita Jean sum's up all of my frustrations with my native state and then some... She goes on to lay out why: We have 248 kinds of snakes in Texas and 246 of them will kill…
Yesterday the postwoman put the latest issue of Cooks Illustrated in the mailbox by the road. When I looked at the cover I was reminded of the differences in growing seasons in this country of ours. In great beauty the cover displayed heirloom tomatoes... On the day that I brought…
To promote the importance of our state’s special sense of place, the Texas Legislature has designated October 14-20 as Native Plant Week. Local communities throughout Texas are planning events for the public to foster the use of native plants in the landscape. Wildflower walks, tours of native plant gardens, educational…
When I was at the PRX site the other day listening to Mary Gauthier I stumbled across this "In Search of a Song" program: Enjoy!
I had Winamp playing yesterday as I fiddled around on the computer when Mary Gauthier came on playing her song "Sugar Cane". That led me to a Google search for a video of the song to post here. What I found was even better...Two hours of interviews she did with…
Heat...Heat...Heat...That's what summer in Texas is all about. It's 10am and this was just on the Weather Underground... the small print under the temperature...The heat index. It already feels like 108°. This time last week I was beginning to feel like I had been transported to the Emerald Isle... Outside my…
Stupid? Arrogant? Crazy? Whoa, wait, isn’t that already the motto of the Republican Party? via Juanita Jean's | Truman Demands Romney Release His Tax Returns. A drop quote to love...
We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it. – George Bernard Shaw The above quotation popped up in an email today and did just what it was supposed to do...It made me stop and think about what it said. George Bernard Shaw (Photo credit:…
Now that the Supreme Court has declared the ACA to be constitutional I find most people still don't know what is in the law... I don't really know. My wife doesn't understand it. I know most of the folks I talk to don't. From the comments and email I get,…
I always knew that red state Texas was stingy. Governor Perry has spent most of his decade in office turning down federal money to help the poor. But this paragraph really spelled out the extent of Texas stinginess. The biggest losers are Medicaid and the poor. Very quietly, the Affordable Care Act…
Yes it does... Mitt Romney may have joked yesterday that the White House was “not sleeping real well” last night. But a lot of people tonight and in the future will sleep a lot better for this result. Young people, people with pre-existing conditions and mainly people who through the…
The house is empty...Crank the volume up... Just a bit. Listen to more Cowboy Junkies at Wolfgang's Vault. I have loved Wolfgang's Vault since I discovered it many years ago...Go check out their music. Then read their story.
It's not even 9am and this is what the local weather station has to say about the temperature here: Temperature 90.7 °F Feels Like 107 °F Yesterday it hit 102° by noon on the back porch. It was still holding above 90° when I went to bed after 11pm...We tied records around here…
The one thing that makes it worthwhile to continue to wade through each new David Brooks Column isn't the fantasy fiction Mr. Brooks turns out each time. It's the quality of the comments from the readers that makes me waste so much of my morning on the days I give…
There was a time not too many years back when the music never stopped playing in what ever room I was in. Then for a long time it was podcasts that played all day long. Then I began to notice that the predominate theme of the podcasts were all politics...…
Yesterday about mid-morning, I was sitting in the rocker on the back porch with a cup of coffee. The temperature had already passed the mid-eighties. The ceiling fans on the porch were the only thing making it doable. Later in the day, as Sherry was driving in from work, I looked over…
I never realized how much of my life I've spent on the Gulf Coastal Prairie...I found this video on line as I was looking for information on native plants. The original link fell by the wayside over the years so here are few new links ... https://youtu.be/aqknxErvs6Y https://youtu.be/_u1K-AQ9fCc https://youtu.be/VMDZ5GTQKhQ https://youtu.be/mZdsyKaIAYE
It all started last weekend. I walked out on the back porch and did a double take at the garden...Then I back pedaled into the house and call my wife and grandson to hurry out and see. There in the garden that Saturday morning were a couple of peafowl...Peahens, maybe. As…
Temperature 84.7 °F Feels Like 91 °F
I wandered over to the Wunderground.com to check the extended forecast for this first week in May and here is what I saw: Thursday Mostly cloudy in the morning, then partly cloudy. High of 84F with a heat index of 91F. Winds from the SE at 5 to 10 mph.…
Now here's a diet I can dip my strawberry in...Or maybe even a carrot and a stick of celery? Chocolate may not be as hazardous to your waistline as you think — at least in moderation.A new study shows that people who eat chocolate frequently have lower body mass indexes…
Video No Longer Available As individuals creating something we are limited by time, talent, energy and (sometimes) money. When we act collectively though, magic happens. via Building more than a house | OdeWire. For some real inspiration, follow the link above...The story is almost as inspiring as the song.
It's beautiful outside. It has been beautiful for a week or more. My thoughts keep turning to digging in the dirt... Planting things that are beautiful, things that taste good, things that attract birds and butterflies. This is my way of saying I'll be missing more than I'm here on the web for…
There is a great dividing year in the history of coffee in America, and it is 1972. Before it, the percolator. After, automatic drip. via Here’s to Mr. Coffee, Known to Some as Sam - NYTimes.com. One of the co-inventors of the home drip coffeemaker died this month at the…
The world out my window this week has been rather busy. The hummingbirds are visiting the feeder off the front porch. That means it's time to pull the rest out of storage and spot them around the place. All of our trees are at some stage in their re-leafing. The Pecans and the…
Today 81 °F Rain Showers 20% chance of precipitation Tonight 66 °F Mostly Cloudy Tomorrow 86 | 64 °F Rain Showers 20% chance of precipitation Just saying...
Today' Weather81 °FT-storms 20% chance of precipitation So, we sprang forward again yesterday. And here we are with what much of the country would consider a summertime forecast. It's already 62° out and the sun isn't up yet. Not that that is an unusually high temperature to be starting the day,…
