Post by stonegate on Sept 26, 2021 13:39:59 GMT -5
This year has been naturally weird. We had the first major cool front of fall last week. Normally that would bring garbage container loads of crickets into town. But this year has been mostly cricket free. Instead, grasshoppers have become the plague du jour. This is unusual because grasshoppers usually only intensify during droughts. But this was a fairly wet summer.
Mason played Junction for their Homecoming football game last night. Mason won 35 to zero. (I've always preferred zero over nothing. Who knows, someday a zero could become a ten, or a hundred, who knows, maybe even a thousand. Nothing's chances of ever becoming something are much less likely.)
One of the things I like about living in Mason is that Mason Building and Supply will often deliver things that don't fit in my pickup for free. This morning I waiting in front of our home to be for B and S to deliver a couple of hog panels. Hog panel is 34" wide and 16' long. I cut it in 4' 8" lengths and zip tie three of them around young trees. Otherwise when bucks start sprouting horns they will rub away a tree's Cambrian layer.
Anyway, while waiting I was facing east and saw a Cooper's Hawk chasing what I guess might be a grasshopper sparrow, into, around, and out of a turkey pear bush. (https://rangeplants.tamu.edu/plant/tasajillo-turkey-pear/). That hawk must have been mighty hungry to mess with a turkey pear bush. Anyway, the sparrow lit out from the bush towards some trees. I thought for sure that he was a goner because the hawk can fly faster. But evidently the sparrow made good her escape because about a minute later I saw the hawk skimming low over grass trying to scare up another grasshopper sparrow.
You know, people tend to congratulate themselves for being at just the right place at just the right time. I certainly have on occasion. But it is more than the right place and the right time, it is the direction we are facing that is just as important. Why did we choose to look in a certain direction. What was there that attracted our attention? I was looking east. They say the early pioneers built their homes facing east in case any family or friends were following behind the homesteaders would be able to see them coming.
This afternoon we met Anne's friend Maureen and helped her load up a metal cabinet she had purchased from a shop on the east side of the Square. We then drove over to the west side for Saturday Market on the Square. There did not seem to be much today. A couple of food trucks (one was selling coffee) and maybe a half dozen vendors on the sidewalk. The soap lady was first. I walked past her while she was talking to someone else. She is a regular. You can tell she has some kind of dream connected to that soap that she isn't ready to let go of. Next table was a mom and two daughters. They had jams and jellies as well as loven from the oven. A girl about ten asked if she could tell me about their products which she helped make. If I had been Superman those two earnest eyes were blue kryptonite. I asked her what was the difference between jelly and jam. Jelly is is made from juices and jam is made from pulp. Remember that next time you go on Jeopardy. I bought the focaccia bread baked with garlic and rosemary.
The next table was a Mexican American fellow from El Dorado. He was born in Del Rio and moved to California with his family when he was ten. He seems to have spent about 20 to 30 years in California and then moved to Wyoming for eight years. But Wyoming was too cold and he has been back in Texas for the last couple of years. He was selling eggs. He had a packet of pictures on the front of the table. He asked me to look at his girls (chickens). I looked down at the first photo, told him they were all lovely lassies and tried to walk on but he picked up the photo packet like a proud papa and took me through his family. I saw where the girls lived and also where he lived (which he said would rent for $4K a month if he were still in Cupertino. There were some nice pictures from Wyoming. As well as pictures of his neighbor's cat and horse that had never been ridden.
This fellow knew all about Maureen's family stating that he had done research on them. Maureen's parents have the oldest family owned winery in Texas which is in Val Verde County, where the man was originally from.
The last table is una abuela (grandmother) y su nietas (granddaughters). With three different tamales, sweet potato empanadas, and other things to eat too much of. (I am 74 and it still tickles me to end a sentence with a preposition).
Which bring us, because it brought me to the petunias. Mason is visual smorgasbord. It has some of the best yards and most interesting homes in Texas. Its courthouse which was maliciously burned down last year will be rebuilt to exact specifications was and will be quintessential. Mason along with Dripping Springs have the only 'A' rated school systems in the Hill Country. Mason High School won two state football championships in the last ten years. Do you know how hard and how awesome that is in Texas? So what is it that makes this place and these people so special? It's petunias. Mason has petunia power. On the west side of the square, between the concrete sidewalks and the asphalt parking areas the are a couple of petunia plants growing. They come up yearly. They exist in one of the hottest and driest areas of the country without soil. That concrete and asphalt gets hot enough to fry an egg. They just don't live, they bloom. It is almost October and they are still blooming. They will likely still be blooming in November.
Oh yes, the high school colors are purple and white. So are the petunias. I have no idea of which was first. Go Punchers! (Short for cowpuncher, someone who works with cattle). Go cowgirls!
In the next life I would like to retrace this life, but look in the directions I chose not to.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. I Corinthians Chapter 13
Mason played Junction for their Homecoming football game last night. Mason won 35 to zero. (I've always preferred zero over nothing. Who knows, someday a zero could become a ten, or a hundred, who knows, maybe even a thousand. Nothing's chances of ever becoming something are much less likely.)
One of the things I like about living in Mason is that Mason Building and Supply will often deliver things that don't fit in my pickup for free. This morning I waiting in front of our home to be for B and S to deliver a couple of hog panels. Hog panel is 34" wide and 16' long. I cut it in 4' 8" lengths and zip tie three of them around young trees. Otherwise when bucks start sprouting horns they will rub away a tree's Cambrian layer.
Anyway, while waiting I was facing east and saw a Cooper's Hawk chasing what I guess might be a grasshopper sparrow, into, around, and out of a turkey pear bush. (https://rangeplants.tamu.edu/plant/tasajillo-turkey-pear/). That hawk must have been mighty hungry to mess with a turkey pear bush. Anyway, the sparrow lit out from the bush towards some trees. I thought for sure that he was a goner because the hawk can fly faster. But evidently the sparrow made good her escape because about a minute later I saw the hawk skimming low over grass trying to scare up another grasshopper sparrow.
You know, people tend to congratulate themselves for being at just the right place at just the right time. I certainly have on occasion. But it is more than the right place and the right time, it is the direction we are facing that is just as important. Why did we choose to look in a certain direction. What was there that attracted our attention? I was looking east. They say the early pioneers built their homes facing east in case any family or friends were following behind the homesteaders would be able to see them coming.
This afternoon we met Anne's friend Maureen and helped her load up a metal cabinet she had purchased from a shop on the east side of the Square. We then drove over to the west side for Saturday Market on the Square. There did not seem to be much today. A couple of food trucks (one was selling coffee) and maybe a half dozen vendors on the sidewalk. The soap lady was first. I walked past her while she was talking to someone else. She is a regular. You can tell she has some kind of dream connected to that soap that she isn't ready to let go of. Next table was a mom and two daughters. They had jams and jellies as well as loven from the oven. A girl about ten asked if she could tell me about their products which she helped make. If I had been Superman those two earnest eyes were blue kryptonite. I asked her what was the difference between jelly and jam. Jelly is is made from juices and jam is made from pulp. Remember that next time you go on Jeopardy. I bought the focaccia bread baked with garlic and rosemary.
The next table was a Mexican American fellow from El Dorado. He was born in Del Rio and moved to California with his family when he was ten. He seems to have spent about 20 to 30 years in California and then moved to Wyoming for eight years. But Wyoming was too cold and he has been back in Texas for the last couple of years. He was selling eggs. He had a packet of pictures on the front of the table. He asked me to look at his girls (chickens). I looked down at the first photo, told him they were all lovely lassies and tried to walk on but he picked up the photo packet like a proud papa and took me through his family. I saw where the girls lived and also where he lived (which he said would rent for $4K a month if he were still in Cupertino. There were some nice pictures from Wyoming. As well as pictures of his neighbor's cat and horse that had never been ridden.
This fellow knew all about Maureen's family stating that he had done research on them. Maureen's parents have the oldest family owned winery in Texas which is in Val Verde County, where the man was originally from.
The last table is una abuela (grandmother) y su nietas (granddaughters). With three different tamales, sweet potato empanadas, and other things to eat too much of. (I am 74 and it still tickles me to end a sentence with a preposition).
Which bring us, because it brought me to the petunias. Mason is visual smorgasbord. It has some of the best yards and most interesting homes in Texas. Its courthouse which was maliciously burned down last year will be rebuilt to exact specifications was and will be quintessential. Mason along with Dripping Springs have the only 'A' rated school systems in the Hill Country. Mason High School won two state football championships in the last ten years. Do you know how hard and how awesome that is in Texas? So what is it that makes this place and these people so special? It's petunias. Mason has petunia power. On the west side of the square, between the concrete sidewalks and the asphalt parking areas the are a couple of petunia plants growing. They come up yearly. They exist in one of the hottest and driest areas of the country without soil. That concrete and asphalt gets hot enough to fry an egg. They just don't live, they bloom. It is almost October and they are still blooming. They will likely still be blooming in November.
Oh yes, the high school colors are purple and white. So are the petunias. I have no idea of which was first. Go Punchers! (Short for cowpuncher, someone who works with cattle). Go cowgirls!
In the next life I would like to retrace this life, but look in the directions I chose not to.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. I Corinthians Chapter 13