But remember – take your boots off before the Stegosaurus eats you.
Edit: YES, I freakin’ KNOW Steggies are vegetarian. Geesh. There’s one in EVERY crowd…
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….)
So I was supposed to go up to Garden Oaks Elementary this morning for the PTO Pancake Breakfast.
I DID try.
But… well…
It just didn’t seem like a good idea at the time.
Punxsutawney Phil says we’re in for six more weeks of winter. Leaving aside the question of how we have six MORE weeks when we haven’t had ANY yet, there’s also the inevitable fact that Texans will never submit to having their weather prognosticated by a Yankee Rodent.
Thus, we give you: Alamo. The Weather Museum’s Guest Forecaster.
And Alamo says Early Spring. Three weeks of rain, centered around Rodeo Trail Ride time.
There’s a Mexican Christmas custom I’ve always enjoyed – a re-enactment of the journey to Bethlehem, complete with throngs of followers and mariachis. (And chocolate and sweets and piñatas after for the younglings….)
I’ve seen it done several different ways, and I’ve read that in Mexico it’s actually a several day long event. One of these days…
So this year’s version (for me) was at Baker-Ripley Community Center (in part because it’s walking distance from my humble hovel).
And it was very nice. Dark, but nice.
There are more pictures behind that one… Click on it and be surprised, amazed, or … well, I hope not bored.
I have this gift for finding it. Of course the regular places, but… around Houston it’s just always there if you look.
I look. I’ve been known to drive editors a little nuts…. “I sent you to the ASIAN festival and you brought back Guadalajara dancers and Jarabe Tapatio!” (And mariachis, too… he didn’t mention the mariachis. Man’s got no taste…)
But it’s fun and challenging to shoot and even when you get CLOSE to right (see below) it looks good.
Someday I’ll get this shot just exactly right. This one is closer to what I want than anything I’ve done in the last few months, so getting somewhere.
Tomorrow is “Help-Portrait” day… will be over at El Dorado working with some other folks. Not sure about this, but it seems like at least a respectable cause. Will see how this goes.
Late Night Downtown Wandering…
Out for a wander yesterday…
It’s DRY here.
This is actually a normal phase for an agave plant, but hey, it’s SYMBOLISM, people! (And they DO look wilted…)