Known to others as Round Rock, TX. Yes Virginia, there really IS a "round rock."
Added September 20, 2003
OK, so if you were thinking about Texas and thinking John Wayne movies and Saguaro cacti, you're about 600 miles too far west. This is the green part of Texas, although the relentless heat of summer can brown it up, pretty thoroughly.
There's a subdivision across that bridge, and that's where I live. It was built in the late 60's, as a place for people who wanted to escape from urban sprawl. Back then, this was basically BFE or "South Dallas." What you don't know (and I ain't gonna show you!) is that behind me you'd see an endless spawl of cookie-cutter, zero-
lot line new houses.
The river-- actually named "Brushy Creek"-- looks peaceful enough. It's that kind of southern looking, willow overhung waterway that just looks like there should be a couple of gators right around the next bend. Alas, no gators here. They wouldn't much care for the occasional dips into the teens during the winter months. However, there's no shortage of snakes along the shores.
We get some "big weather" in Texas, and during prolonged heavy downpours, that bridge can be under 4-5 feet of water, swiftly moving by and taking anything in its path with it. I've seen boats, trees, an outhouse, a dead cow and a camping trailer go by, during extremely heavy weather.
Behind where I am standing in the top picture is a small park, which is also one of the trailheads for the Williamson County hike and bike trail system, so there's easy access to nature-- whenever it's not too blinkin' hot to enjoy it.
So anyways, you cross the bridge, turn left, meander for a half mile or so, and then you come to "ye olde homestead." It sits deep in the greenery, and there's really no good angle to show it from. One of the things I've always liked about it is that it looks so small and unpretentious from the street. Because it is built into the hillside, the street-facing side is one level, while the side facing the back yard and water is two-story. The houses here are fairly far apart, since the smallest lots are about 3/4 acre, the largest are about 6 acres. Yup, we have the obligatory chairs in the the front yard-- maybe it's a southern thing, to sit and watch the world.
There's a nice sense of privacy, even though there's no fence or hedge to the street. The front door is even kinda hidden away-- as several people have remarked, it signals "some pretty private people live here."
Anyway, you can walk around the side of the house, and get to the back lawn, where you have a view of the river. The reason it looks bigger than in the first photo is that there's a dam about 300 yards downstream from us, to we have a lake (of sorts) in the back yard. It's about 250 feet across, and about 10 feet deep, out in the middle.
It's almost as hard to see the house from the back, as from the front, as it is almost completely hidden behind the trees. Around here, that's a nice thing, since it keeps the summer sun from shining directly on you. The greenhouse is a bit of an eyesore-- but also a necessity. It gets just about cold enough here to require shelter for a few plants, so we have a place to winter them-- we just put new plastic on the greenhouse.
The smaller photo (below, right) shows a different angle, but not really much more of the house. The greenery clinging to most of the right side of the house is actually a "Lady Banks" rose, which becomes a veritable cloud of pale yellow flowers in late spring.
The lawn always looks like someone dropped small bits of paper on it-- actually they are feathers from the goose and dozen-odd ducks who come up for a feed on a regular basis. We also have a couple of guinea fowl running around. It's an animal friendly place-- however, it is also almost impossible to grow anything, on account of the huge herd of deer living in the neighborhood. They pretty much regard anything in the yard (with a few exceptions) as a giant salad bar. I can't say I really blame them-- with the ever-
increasing density of suburban sprawl, this subdivision is about the only place where they still have some free space to roam-- the entire countryside used to be theirs, and WE are essentially coming into THEIR home.
It's not so bad, as Skoal, TX goes. The photo at left is one of my favorites. It's about what you see if you turn 180 degrees from the one of the house, above. The proximity of nature is one of the things that get me through life, here.
This particular shot is one of those rare ones-- I was looking for a bit of fall color, last October-- and was going for a closeup of the red leaves at bottom, center. All of a sudden the breeze died, and the water became smooth as glass. And right at the moment I took the shot, a wild duck landed and set off a pool of ripples on the otherwise smooth surface. A magical moment. And why I so often say "Nature is my Church."
Yes, there's a web site attached to the other end of these photo pages. It's under construction, but you're welcome to take a peek. One of these days it'll be finished.
