Old friends and family - one day, two "walks"

Mid-afternoon:

Do you have any LONG TIME friends? Seriously, I am talking about friends who have known you forever.

I have friends I have known, well, let's just say, since my mother was in the first grade. "How can this be?" you ask.

My mother met her best friend in the first grade. They were friends through high school, as they married and had children, and thereafter. They were best friends all their lives. And mom shared stories of their friendship (so I know about fixing bicycles, running across the old "condemned" river bridge and bumming cigarettes from the priest).

Because they were such good friends and because my "aunt" and her husband, "Uncle L," lived in the same town as my grandmother, we grew up with their children. Except for the youngest in each family who were born the same year, our mothers seemed to "stagger" childbirth. This meant there was always a kid either one year older or one year younger with whom we could hang out.

For many years we vacationed together and attended reunions of our mothers' graduating class. We have visited off and on for years. And, through the miracle of the Internet, we continue to stay in touch.

DH and I traveled to my mother's hometown today at the recommendation of my youngest brother. The local historical society hosts a cemetery walk at the end of October every year. This year's walk was at the cemetery where my mother's people are buried. The graves of one grandmother, one grandfather, one great grandmother, two great grandfathers, one uncle, one great aunt, a number of great great aunts and uncles, and an unknowable number of cousins are there.* And my brother had gotten our tickets. We were going.

But before the walk, we called our friends. And they invited us to lunch. [If you are not blessed to be a southerner and do not have long-time friends, you will not understand this paragraph at all.]  We did not intend to "invite ourselves over" for lunch as we were arriving mid-afternoon. But, once invited, we were determined that we could and would, in fact, make it if the traffic and road condition gods operated in our favor.

We had a wonderful time with our "uncle,"  4 of the 6 children and a cat who wandered in and out. Our mothers are gone now, but they are still so present as we all visit, share stories, catch up on our todays, talk about plans, and remember.

We could have ended the day right there, stomachs and hearts full.

What a gift it is to have such friends!

Evergreen:

We met my brother and his family at the gate, arriving early so we could find and photograph family plots. Of course we found work to do. My great grandmother's stone was gone when we arrived at the family plot. Where was she? We decided to look beneath an overgrown shrub and, yes, there she was! I suspect there are garden clippers in my future.

Oh the stories that were coming to life as we found different family - my grandparents, my grandmother's half siblings, and my great grandmother's sisters.** We searched briefly for my great grandfather we only recently discovered had been buried in this place, but gave up with a plan to return with directions (and the aforementioned garden clippers).

Then the cemetery walk began.

Tour guides (ours was P - one of the grown children mentioned above) took groups to 12 stations. At each station a "ghost" told  about his/her life during the civil war era. The ghosts were in period costume and the stories were well researched. Each ghost made the history of that community "come alive."

We learned a good bit of Texas history. Some of the ghosts were descendants of the people they portrayed and two of the ghosts were connected (or were possibly connected) in some way to our great grandfather. While it was a short walk along the paths of the cemetery, it was a long walk through history. And we were smitten. We could do this and would do this in the future, we vowed.

**Five little girls were orphaned. Their family was German and they were taken into German families in town. One was my great grandmother. This is the grave of one of her sisters. She was adopted by a blacksmith and his wife.

Great great aunt's adoptive father's stone. Translation to come.

Great great aunt's adoptive mother's stone. [She died at the age of 76. And the quote is something like "Blessed are those who die in the Lord." I will work on this.]

Large marker in my great grandfather's plot. His marker is just beyond. My great grandmother's is under the bush.

My brother's legs on either side of the stone as he "backs" the bush out of the way.

Had to take a photo of the plot at dark.

Family plot from a distance. It is not a good cemetery story without photos of "orbs" at the end. No?

* My great grandfather had three wives. The first died childless. The second had at least 8 children who survived to adulthood. The third, my great grandmother, had two children. There are loads of family represented here in Evergreen.

Jacket Weather

ICE - No, it's not that cold. But I have injured a foot and OC told me "ICE" - ice it, use compression bandages, and elevate it.

I tried the compression last night and was able to walk on it without pain this a.m. [Past mornings have brought initial searing pain, followed by dull pain and a limp...]

So, overconfident, I put on hiking shoes (one looks normal, the other is big with bandage and sock) and walked the dogs for the first time in a long time.

DH felt sorry for me and came along.

It was a slow walk. No one "hustled" the dogs to move along because I needed to take it slow. They loved the opportunity to smell everything along our normal path.

The light of the waning gibbous moon allowed us to see the enormous grey cat at the top of the steep hill. Then, silhouetted against the glow of the streetlight, a doe stopped and then crossed from the grassy lot to the park. She was followed by another, then another.

DH, Paddy, Scruffy, and I stopped at the top of the hill. We wanted to allow the entire herd to cross, but the dogs were anxious to give chase. We compromised and kept walking. I could see a buck, still in the darkness of the field. He did not cross, recognizing these dogs and people would block his route.

It was a prefect fall Friday walk...the first of many.

Trinity River Walk

DH and I were in Fort Worth for a celebration this weekend. We stayed in a hotel near part of the Trinity Trails, a network of 40 miles of trails for jogging, walking, biking, dog walking and such. The trails connect 21 parks and other community treasures including the Botanical Gardens and zoo.

After days (and nights) of feasts and parties, we knew a walk was required. And the river called us. How could we be so close and not take advantage of the beautiful paved and gravel and grass trails?

We joined families and singletons, walkers, runners, dog walkers, and bikers heading up and down the trails. We watched people cross the low-water crossing/dam. We investigated the hundetoilette (I have become a collector of hundetoilette photos). These were located in a small green space just off the trail.

Hundetoilette

A large number of waterfowl swam back and forth, feeding in the shallows.

Water fowl

More water fowl

Brother?

Heron

Oaks and pecans towered overhead. I explained the differences to DH. Bur oaks have large acorns with hairy and textured caps (and large round lobed leaves). Red oaks have much smaller acorns and the caps are not hairy (leaves are large with sharp points). Live oaks have entirely different acorns  (oblong, turning black when ripe) and the leaves are quite small. Before our walk was over, I was able to show him specimens of each. [I may be terrible identifying birds, but I can usually distinguish common Texas oaks.] And pecans (right now) are bearing this year's crop - too easy.

Rounded leaves and giant acorns of Bur oak

 

DH shown examples of Bur acorns

 Leaves floated on the cool breeze.

We spied one example of street art on an electric power transmission pole. My heart sang (I am chaffing over being in Texas when Banksy is spending a month creating art all over NYC. This fortuitous discovery has calmed me considerably.).

We almost missed this as we walked along. We were looking towards the river, not the industrial area on the other side of the trail.

Close-up of the art. Wouldn't you think the title is "Pencil"?

 
We walked about an hour before the final celebration of the weekend, hugs all around, and promises of visits to come.

Trail (with speed bumps) along the Trinity.

Small stream feeding into the river. I guess that is a "selfie" - my shadow.

Beautiful old trees

 

Who says there is no fall color in Texas?

 

Rail yard adjoins part of the trail.

Low water crossing/dam

We saw people walking across the dam and climbing the rough steps. We skipped it.

A reminder that the placid river is not always calm.

 

At times it was impossible to think we were in a city.

We could get used to this.

NOTES:

www.trinitytrails.org

www.banksyny.com

Throw-back Thursday walk - posted on a rainy Sunday

Two blocks from my home stands the elementary school where my children spent about 14 years all told (EC attended from first grade through fourth. MC and YC attended from kindergarten through fourth.).

How many times did we make this walk? I figure about a thousand times, give or take a hundred (because it did rain on occasion and we were known to play hooky as well), we wandered from home to school and back again gathering classmates and picking up squirrel gnawed Bur oak acorns (We knew those were squirrel teeth marks because we compared the marks to the squirrel skull Grandpa gave us).

Loads of plants are bearing fruit and beans and seed pods, preparing for new plants. Pecan trees groan under the weight of ripening fruit.

Bur oak acorns*

Giant live oak tree

Big pomegranate crop

More pomegranates

Mountain Laurel beans

Trumpet vine seed pods

Silver-leaved nightshade fruit (No we did not seed the dollar for those picking up trash. We are using it to show the size of the "tomatoes.").

Close-up of silver-leaved nightshade "tomatoes"

Little yellow flowers

Pink flowers ( ) scattered in the dry grass with tall goldenrod spikes about to bloom.

Fall wildflowers

NOTE: OK. The wildflower photos are from the park, but I needed to put them somewhere.

Shhhhh, buzzards!

There is an old joke about a farmer's dismay over a wild rooster on his farm. The title of this post is the punchline. I am not telling the joke here, but I always seem to think of that punchline whenever I see buzzards.

And we saw one today.

DH and the pups and I hurried down to the park today as the weather threatened rain and the traffic was already brisk (games in the park today) at 7:30 a.m.

In the still dim light we noticed a large black "something" eating "something else" in a neighbor's yard. And as we got closer the eater turned to profile (turkey vulture) and displayed his feast (squirrel - Aw, darn - note the sarcasm?).

I still feel the dogs' lunge for the bird along the back of my arm. But I held fast and the bird flew away - first to rest on the roof line of the house, then the tree behind the house, and finally away, away.

We decided to skip any attempt to cross the street to the park. This dance through traffic would be almost impossible today. Instead we walked along the forest of ragweed bordering the creek that winds along the edge of the vacant lot directly across from the park.

Paddy and Scruffy found loads of new scents and tried to follow more than a few into the creek. Then, for the first time, we noticed an enormous pecan tree at the back of the lot. I suppose we have missed it as we generally have already turned our eyes to the park by this point in the walk. Or perhaps we are focused on deer crossing here, as they sometimes do. Or maybe we just look down to see what wildflowers are blooming, or to avoid "Jake the snake" in this still somewhat wild field.

Whatever the reason, we have missed this stunning tree. But we saw it today. We admired it as we walked towards it. We walked around it and under its impressive branches. We turned to take another look as we walked away. It is an old, old  tree. And it is still producing pecans. It hung heavy with nuts.

The fussing of the pups prevented me from taking any photos of the tree. Be patient. Photos soon. You will have to be satisfied with the buzzard for now.

Do you see it there by the tire of the white truck?

Now you see it.

No mistaking this scavenger.

How appropriate for a grey October day!

Fly away, fly away...

We were surprised to see a row of houses, clearly empty. One was the home of the dog that attacked Paddy last year. And this house need more than a little yard work.

The Liatris are blooming...

...along our walk.

I don't think liatris were part of my consciousness until my mother was ill in 1990. My brother brought a bunch to her room in ICU at a time when we thought (wrongly) we would lose her and were allowed to break a lot of ICU rules. I look for them every October now.

The purple of the liatris was beautiful against the background of  goldenrod. White asters were blooming too, as were broomweed and ragweed*, but it was the saturated yellow and purple that caught the eye.

Fall had arrived, if only for a few hours. We were in long sleeves and light jackets and we suspected the deer would wait for us on this cool crisp morning. We were right.

As we entered the near meadow we could hear the ball players arriving at the fields behind us in the park. [When did it become okay to schedule little league ball on Sunday morning in this conservative rural community? When did I become such a crank?]

The weeds were chest high and gave the deer good cover.

So we saw flashes of yellow and flashes of purple and then flashes of white tails as two scooted into the woods. And that was all we needed to encourage us down the road further. In the far meadow other deer were grazing.

We immediately saw the unmistakable long neck and big ears silhouetted against the dark woods at the far end of the meadow. That doe watched us for some minutes and then moved into the thin strip of woods that separates the meadow from the park. There were others with her...perhaps two yearlings.

Then we noticed another doe closer to us. She casually fed and then, head up, watched as we moved to within 100 or 120 feet of her. Then she started her dance.

She bounded across the meadow. [How does one describe a doe's ballet? What is the term for a deer jete? The dazzling leaps still play in my mind.]

She stopped mid-meadow and watched us for a moment more. Then turning, she completed her  meadow-long dance and entered the woods  behind us, where she joined the others who had kept pace with her. We had watched their movements within the woods, a corps of dancers just behind the primary.

I have only seen this dance, this stunningly beautiful, graceful escape played out across 150 yards of high grass and fall wildflowers, once before.

"What a gift." I sighed to DH as we started our long walk home.


Notes:

*How to figure out what is blooming?

Go to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website (www.wildflower.org). They have an image gallery that can help you decide just what kind of liatris or goldenrod, or broomweed you saw on your walk. Okay, maybe I had to go to my wildflower books to decide about the goldenrod and I don't care which variety of ragweed, but the others were there (Liatris elegans, Prairie broomweed).

The River - What does one eat?

There are traditional things eaten at the river, including:

We eat breakfast tacos most mornings. It isn't a trip to the river without bacon.

Bacon!

 We no longer cook all our meals, but go out to eat for pizza and Mexican food in town.

Did I mention that each morning begins with the smells of frying bacon?

BACON!

 I used to make a big pot of spaghetti or make sausage and mac and cheese. But now we try to only cook breakfast, eat sandwiches and eat out one meal each day. Who wants to be stuck in the kitchen cooking and cleaning when there is a river so close by, family to visit with, and games to play (dominoes, cards, puzzles, Frisbee, and washers among others).


 We have special snacks: s'mores...

You have to toast some marshmallows for s'mores.

 ...certain members of the family enjoy Tootsie Roll Pops. And some love Flavor Ice...

We won't name names, but we all know who eliminates the Flavor Ice. We had some left over. Thus it should be clear who missed the trip this year.

 
Did I mention that we enjoy bacon every morning?

f

This is one of the few times a year we cook, yes, yes, BACON.

Fresh eggs(and bacon on the side)

 If you are ever on the Frio River and you smell bacon frying, hear the clink of a washer game, wonder why those people are laughing so hard, and want to stop in to visit, you will be welcome.

Plants and critters along the river (and around the area) #1

There would have been more photos, but we were only there a couple of days. There were so many things I missed - like the huge mixed herd of deer (both Axis and whitetail), but there is always next year.

Many photos were taken through the windows/windshield. This buck (Axis? ) was almost arrogant.

Wish you could read the sign in this closeup. It said, "Posted. No Hunting."'
DH talked to this guy mockingly and the buck responded with an upward thrust of the chin...attitude.

Goldenrod was everywhere this year.

Wildflowers

Sign at the low water crossing. These pipes were no hazard this year.

From the road, looking at the river where the tubes release water... It is usually a fast place to start when the river is high

The tubes/pipes, whatever you want to call them-decidedly dry.

Looking up-river...um well...up riverbed.

 

Looking down river from the low water crossing

Spot at the edge of the low water crossing where we often launch...but not today.

Fog covered hill.

Perch

Hill we walk down to get to the river

River trail (been walking this trail 51 years)

This area is usually covered with water.

River

More dryish riverbed