Again with the parades. Because, well, I can. They’re fun… and I get to watch (and shoot) a lot of folklorico without editors complaining.
Plus there were these other guys….

Moving closer:

But not TOO close…

And they’re not all blue…

(Indian Paintbrush, it’s called. Look closely and it has almost the exact same structure as the Bluebonnet, and they’re commonly seen together. I’ll have to do my homework but I’m betting they’re closely related… kissin’ cousins or better.)
Walkabout in downtown Fort Worth….

Aim High.
Scan from some time back when….

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks at Brazos Bend State Park… Cute li’l guys.
Firing up the time machine and running back about, oh, 155-160 years or thereabouts to the last days of the Republic of Texas (give or take a few years..) This is Barrington Living History Farm, which represents the home of Dr. Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic.
It’s planting time. Jessica Guidry, teamster, works with Shorty and Slim, one of the farm’s two teams of oxen; Mark Sanders is in charge of the cultivator, which is configured to turn two rows for planting.

(For no apparent reason except it seemed fun, I turned the digital image into a faux-period piece. I actually shot it yesterday….)(or maybe there really was a time warp….)
What to say? I have a cousin (I think my grandfather’s brother’s son, or his cousin, or something…) with unusual taste in pets. To say the least.
This is Eli.
These two guys together are great. Eli just loves being combed, or scritched, whichever this is…

But Santa makes his rounds, apparently in whatever conveyance is available.

(I’m thinking, this being Texas, that the reindeer probably graced somebody’s formal Christmas dinner, as Guests of Honor, you might say.)
Trip was otherwise mostly uneventful; central Texas is only slightly photogenic and only in spring (bar the odd wild blizzard, which didn’t happen) but the sunset was somewhat nice….

Especially as it moved into three dimensions and multiple layers….

Lock and load; it’s time to hit the trail…..