I Go Out Walkin'

I had a very eventful walk tonight. I saw many wildflowers out and about in Lytton Springs, even a new flower I hadn't seen before and now must identify. There are bluebonnets blooming, but not along the stretch of road that I was walking. All of the blue that I saw was in the form of Bud Light cans. Somebody who drives home on 1854 each night LOVES a Bud Light for the drive home, and seeds the roadsides with their empties. Otherwise it was the usual suspects - vervain, broom, paintbrush, crow poison, dewberries, evening primrose. And a few I didn't expect - wild honey suckle and a small purple bell flower I have yet to identify. I even ran into an old friend- Scoop, the stray kitty who visited the farm late last year. She's filthy dirty, has ditched the undignified collar, and looked a bit thinner than before. But she was crazy for the love, as usual. She stayed in the field across the street where I found her. It was a beautiful evening, cool and gently breezy.I was careful to avoid ant mounds, but it was easy because most of the roadsides had been recently mowed. There were no loose country dogs to scare the bejesus out of me - only fenced barkers. Even a turkey! I stopped several times to admire the huge oak trees growing twisted and massive along my path. I saw a cardinal, and stopped to listen to it twitter. There were solemn cows and horses with their necks bent, intent on the freshly sprouting green food at their feet. I walked home as the sun set on the prairie.

I am a newlywed. I married a guy whose antique orange 1953 Dodge Bus I admired 10 years ago when, unbeknownst to us at the time, we lived within three blocks of eachother, in the city. Now that bus is parked on my land. In the meantime, he took up inhabiting 3 acres on the black prairie lands south east of Austin, Texas. I lived in the city in little apartments. We met at our caving club, but only got together because we'd been doing some paddling together, and some friends of our conspired and planted the seeds, knowing we had crushes on eachother.When we started dating, one of the things that Charley liked about me was that I liked his place. It was definately... rustic. He wanted to build his conglomerate of salvaged buildings into a real house, but didn't have any firm ideas for what to do. A few days later, I approached him with some plans that I had drawn up! I didn't know if he was really serious about the building project, but I had plenty of ideas! He asked me to move out and build it with him. So today, we have one building finished. We have an outdoor kitchen that is quite unfinished. I am living in the finished building, built around a metal gas station building. It is such a great house! We painted in really crazy colors, and there is so much room! It's really neat to live in a space you designed yourself, and you know exactly what is in the walls, because you helped to put them up.So now I live in the country. I drive a lot, because I still work in the city. We're trying to participate in our small town life more often. I want a dog. Charley travels quite a bit. We have plans to have a family, very soon. Our 'compound' is a work in progress... we have a shop, another building, a garden to plan, a kitchen to finish.My life has changed quite a bit, recently! But it also feels very natural, like I'm right where I'm supposed to be. My life as it is now is very different from how it has been for the last 10 years, so I'm using this blog -pportunity to chronicle it.Stay tuned. Mostly I'll be writting about my day to day life, living in the country and commuting to my citylife and having a family, growing a garden, building a house, managing 3 acres, being married, and getting a dog. (we'll see)