Lately

Summer has come, and is slipping away already. I've been explaining that we've had a wet year, and while it can provide some inconvenience, it really has been a boon to us Central Texans. August was lush. Usually August is a dreary brown, similar to the blankness of February up north, but not this year! We have had more than plenty of water, and I have spent many weekends paddling a small boat down glorious stretches of hill country rivers: The Pedernales, The Blanco, Onion Creek, and the highlight - The Frio River. The Frio is a special place - ask anyone who's been there. But I should mention that almost every trip had a pretty high light of it's own. The Pedernales was swift, unobstructed, fell over countless ledges for a bit of a technical challenge - and was 36 inches deep, most of the time! If you fell out, you just stood up and got back in. Onion Creek had a beautiful hydro-massaging waterfall, and we had one exciting time pulling a friend's kayak, wrapped like a tortilla around a rock, off and out of the water, and with a foot kicked it back into shape to carry on. The Blanco trip was a treat, beginning with special access to a put-in that included on the same ranch one of the most spectacular features found on a texas river. The Narrows pours the Blanco river down a slot less than a kayak's width across, down 20 feet, into a churning, frothy, scalloped series of drops that ends in a bit of an overhung canyon and smooths out around a bend to push you on towards the rest. The Frio is crystal clear, emerald green, cold, quite shallow and pushy with incredibly deep swimming hole decorated with playground-perfect boulders for sunning and leaping from. Cypress trees with spanish moss usher you through narrow channels packed with standing waves and lots of action to scoot you on past towering pale limestone cliffs running with springs and festooned with bobbing ferns.
Flowers have bloomed all year long on our land. Right now there are Prairie Agalinis in patches about knee high all over the property. They remind me of foxglove, but are more delicate with spindly stems and leaves. The Bindweed is flowering a brilliant purple on every fence you see, and even in clumps and as a ground covering vine. Broomy Parralena covers the fields with technicolor yellow, and the big ugly mean mystery plant turns out to be some kind of prairie goldenrod, and is blooming right now, too. I saw some old man's beard near the Frio, and there was even one small, stunted texas paintbrush growing in the soggy shaded areas to the back of the property!! The don't usually bloom this late in the year. The vervain is also making an appearance again, something I usually associate with spring. I never did see as much wild geranium as I did last summer, but that may have had to do with how often we've been mowing and where we've developed walk ways and parking with the expansion of the house. Just last night I disturbed three toads walking between houses, one of them at least as big as my fist. I have seen numerous dragonflies and damsel flies, some of them as long as my outstretched hand with bodies as long and as fat as my finger. After the walking sticks and banana spiders disappeared earlier this season, praying mantis have been all over the screens enjoying the bounty our outside light provides them. On our river cruises I've seen Queen butterflies, swollowtails, sisters, hairstreaks, and lots of sulfurs. All of these except the sister made an appearance at the house recently, too.
I've been spending time with Charley and have been doing some embroidery, one of those hobbies I haven't touched in years. I"ve jumped in full-bore and it is a very pleasing way to pass the time. We have added a very big antique buffet to the furnishing of the house, with carved dragons and halfshelves and the original mirror above a set of 4 drawers. The piece is american, and from the early 1900's. We got a smoking deal, and even better, when we moved the 6'tx3.5w'x2'd monster into the house, we rearranged (but didn't remove anything) and wound up with a more open setting that provided us with more space!
So life is good and we've been busy. Fall is going to speed on by, and we have lots of plans. We'll be in Mexico, Connecticut, west Texas, and the south Texas shore by Christmas. There are caves to explore, family to be with, and friends to visit. NOt to mention work to do and a house to finish.... but I don't want to get ahead of myself. I'm very much enjoying this time of year. Tonight I walked the grounds for the first time in a long time, and a downright chilly breeze wrapped me in coolness. There's a dryness that we haven't been able to experience in a while that has settled in for a day or two - we're expecting some more rain this week. The light isn't as long into the night and there is something about the terrain that says Autumn is on the way, and if she doesn't get a speeding ticket on the way, she'll be here sooner than you'll know!