Travelogue: ‘Galveston

… oh Galveston, I still hear your sea winds blowin'

While my daughter was here, we decided to make the drive to Galveston.  My children are all very much in tune with the Gulf and with Galveston in particular, I think.  Me too – I still miss it every day.

So, just in case you don’t know:

Galveston Island is one of a string of sand-barrier islands along the coast of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico.  The island is about two miles off-shore, twenty-seven miles long and less than three miles wide.  (Put this into your useless information for a star-studded cocktail party file.)

No, there are no white sand, blue water beaches.  That’s because (1) our sand is brown and (2) there are many rivers that flow into the Gulf carrying sediment.  Because of the geographic location of the Gulf and the rotation of the Earth, the silt sort of swirls around west and south before swirling out to the Caribbean or settling to the gulf floor.  On calm days, the water is fairly clear and green.  On stormy days – not so much.

We decided to drive over, have some good seafood, walk around Strand for a while, visit Seawall and generally absorb the air (feels softer, smells briny) and listen to all the seabirds sounds (I miss that sound – silly, but I do).

OK – there are several ways to get to Galveston from Wharton.  You can take Hwy 59 (the 59 that’s under construction for 30 of the 50 miles – aaarrrggghhhhh) to Houston, then Loop 610 to Hwy 45 south.  I figure that will take anywhere from 2-87 hours of white knuckle driving depending on traffic.  Or you can go the back way which takes you through several small towns and is mostly county roads.  That’s the way we went.  It’s not a bad drive.

Lunch – Pier 21 on Harborside.  Great place, good food, good service, easy parking.  And, you can sit on the patio to enjoy interesting views.

We walked across the street to Strand and wandered up and down looking at and going in the various shops.  We both have certain places that are on the “I have to go in here” list.  

  

The Christmas Store

Hendley Market

I can find 80 dozen things I need in there!

This is new - 

The Spice and Tea Exchange
I need one of these closer to me!

La King’s Confectionery

Then we drove down to Seawall. 

 Just a quick – Did you know?

Built in 1902, the Seawall is about 10 miles long, 17 feet high and 16 feet thick.  Materials used in constructing the original seawall included 5.200 railway carloads of crushed granite; 1,800 carloads of sand; 1,000 carloads of cement; 1,200 carloads of round wooden pilings; 4,000 carloads of wooden sheet pilings; 3,700 carloads of stone riprap; and 5 carloads of reinforcing steel.  Pretty stout wall.

In 1903, concurrent with construction of the seawall, the city of Galveston was also raised 17 feet.  In addition to all the utilities, about 2000 buildings/homes were raised on hand-turned jackscrews.

Then we drove home.

It was a very nice day.

Take care

 

Home again, home

a gathering, event, or show having a specified focus

I know, I know – I’ve been off-line for a few days.  My oldest daughter was here visiting from New Mexico and I spent all my time with her.  Plus I have a couple of new books ………..

So, what exciting has been happening?  HA!  I live in Wharton, you know.  We don’t have much “exciting” here.  However, this past Thursday, I did attend an interesting ‘fest’.

Every year, the Wharton Garden Club, (of which I am a long-time member) has an annual Tomato Fest.  It is the last meeting of the year and always in June.  All members are invited to participate by bringing a selection of homegrown tomatoes in an effort of discover the Best Tasting Tomato and the Biggest Tomato in Wharton County. 

Our master of ceremonies is another long-time member and he shares a few interesting and little-known tomato facts ---

A tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable.  It’s a fruit because it has seeds inside.  And, yes, that makes cucumbers, squash, green beans and pumpkins fruits also.  Weird but true.

Tomatoes are not only red – they are also pink, orange, yellow, white, green and purple.

Then, he warms up the crowd with some tomato jokes ---

Q: What did the papa tomato say to the baby tomato?

A: “Hurry and ketchup!”

Q: Why did the tomato go out with a prune?

A: Because he couldn’t find a date.

And, lastly, he lays out the rules and parameters of the tasting ---

This is a blind taste test.  Those participating in the tasting go around the table, eat one of the cut pieces and then rate it from one to 10.  One is the very worst tomato you’ve ever had (tastes like paper) and 10 is the very best (mmm mmm good).  The plates of cut up tomatoes are not identified by name or grower.  No cheating here.

After everyone is full of tomatoes, he goes around and adds up the scores for each tomato, averages them and ultimately determines to best tasting 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place tomatoes.  This year the winners were all named Bob.  Obviously, as one winner said, if you want to win, you need to be named “Bob”.  And, in case you want to know what to plant for next year --- Sweet Chelsea won first, Black Cherry got second and Sugary Cherry, third.

Sweet Chelsea

Next comes the great weigh-off.  While there were several entered in the Biggest contest, there were only three real contenders

 Amana Orange

German Queen

And the winner

 Big Zac

At a hefty 1 lb 15 oz

As with most of the meetings, people brought food and they brought tomato themed food.  Like

 Fried Green Tomatoes

Tomato Pie

Tomato Bruschetta

It was a very enjoyable morning!

Take care

Washing and Drying and Stuff

Just in case you missed it this year, April 19 was National Hanging Out Day.  If you thought about celebrating it, I’ll bet you thought it was the day to get together with your buddies and just “hang”. 

Nope.  It is a day reserved to encourage people to learn about the benefits of using a clothesline for drying laundry.  Did you know??  That according to “experts that study these things” electric clothes dryers account for 6 to 10 percent of energy consumption.  Hanging out clothes (1) Is good for the environment; (2) Saves you money; (3) Therapeutic because you are outdoors in the fresh air.

To be completely honest, hanging clothes outside is something I had never done (after all, I grew up in a time then washers and dryers were the norm).  In fact, until we moved to the country house in Wharton, I’d never owned a house that had a clothesline.  And, then I didn’t use it for clothes until one day when the dryer died. 

So, just a few observations

Hanging clothes on a line isn’t bad.  Doesn’t take too long and as long as you start in the early AM, it’s not too hot out there.

Those authors that write about the wonderfulness of sun and breeze dried clothes, towels, sheets – how fresh and soft they are – don’t live here in the humid part of the universe.

  

Letting sheets dry on a clothesline is ok.  They are fresh and dry pretty nicely, abet wrinkled.  (Clotheslines, you know, were used daily in the world when everything was ironed, something I never learned how to do and besides why iron sheets – they’re just going to get wrinkled when you go to bed).

 

Anything else dries like a board – towels are almost impossible to fold and clothes are itchy.

And speaking of washers and dryers.  I’ve never used or had anything other than a normal washer/dryer set. 

However, when I was very young, my aunt who lived in East Texas, had one of the wringer types.  I remember she would roll it outside to the back porch and run it there.  It was fun to help her catch the wrung-out clothes after they were fed through the wringers.  Afterwards, they would be hung on a clothesline to dry.  I don’t think she thought it was as much fun.  I remember when she got a washer/dryer set (probably in the early 1960s) she was much happier.

Can you tell?  I’ve been finishing up laundry today and my mind is obviously wandering over curious things.

I do occasionally read my horoscope.  Today’s says –

“This is not a great day to make big decisions or purchases. Today would be best spent curled up with a good book.”

I have a new book so I think I’ll follow the horoscope advise.

Take care

Weather

The past many weeks have been very hot and, rain-wise, very dry.  We had such a lovely, nice, cool spring that everyone here at least, thought we’d have a nice mild summer. 

No such luck.  About the second week of May, we went from cool mornings and mild evenings with regular rain TO hot, dry but humid days and nights. 

This morning I was awakened by a 6am text asking for help identifying a flower.  No problem – the beep beep boop text alert interrupted a dream heading toward nightmare.  It was time to get up. 

And, by the way, I was semi-successful in identifying two flowers – one was a Protea

The other, the computer didn’t like any of the things I could come up with.  Oh well.

That done, I walked outside …………

Now, yesterday we had rain (yea!).  We haven’t had any rain in several weeks so everything was happy (me too).  We actually got about an inch of rain at my house.  I’d have been happier if we’d have gotten a couple or 3 inches but beggars and all that.  Anyway, by evening, it was actually pretty nice outside.  I hesitate to say cool but at least not sweltering hot. 

   ……. walked outside and walked into a hot wet blanket!  Ack!  It was so hot at 6:30am and so humid it was difficult to breathe.  You know I live in the gulf coast plains – I’m used to humidity but, honestly this morning it was like breathing hot water.  Awful!  I had to look at the calendar – yep, just June.  Just the middle of June, not even officially “summer” yet.  Sigh.  It’s going to be a hot time in the old town. 

So now I’m wondering what will attract the rain to us. 

Weather lore doesn’t help much when it comes to attracting rain.  It can tell us when it’s going to or not rain, like –

"When cows are lying down in a field, rain is on its way" 

“When the dew is on the grass, rain will never come to pass.”  Well hell, if that’s true we might not have rain again for a long time.  There is always dew on the grass here!

Oh – how about this one –

"St.Swithin's Day if thou be fair, 'Twill rain for forty days no mair; St. Swithin's Day if thou dost rain, For forty days it will remain.". 

St. Swithins Day is July 15 so we’ll have to wait on this one.  Actually, I don’t like either choice – 40 days with no rain - ick – we’ll dry up and blow away.  Forty days of rain just might find us all watching for the Ark.

No help there.  Wait!  I have a rainstick!

    is made from any of several species of cactus. The cacti, which are hollow, are dried in the sun. The spines are removed, then driven into the cactus like nails. Pebbles are placed inside the rainstick, and the ends are sealed. A sound like falling water is made when the rainstick has its direction changed to a vertical position in the belief it could bring about rainstorms.

You know there’s something else that attracts rain.  Leaving the car windows down.  I’m pretty sure that’s what caused the rain yesterday!

Take care

Jatropha podagrica; Homalocladium platycladum

This past May, when the garden club held its annual plant sale, I was determined to come home empty handed.  Well, actually if that had been the absolute truth, I would have left my wallet at home.  As it was, I was pretty good and brought home only a few new plants.  And since my flowerbeds were and are full to overflowing, the new ones are now members of the horde of potted plants sitting around my yard.  This, of course, means I will have to bring them inside (along with the many, many others) come fall.  I shall probably complain to high heaven then.

When I buy plants, it is because of (1) I am already familiar with it and want one; (2) something about the plant catches my attention; or (3) I just like the name.

This one – I just liked the name – Buddha Belly (Jatropha podagrica) or Bottle Plant or Gout Plant.

Yes, yes – I got two of them
but they are slightly different
from one another

Buddha belly plants are succulents and native to dry or semi-moist tropical climates.  Ok, that’s good – it’s semi-moist here (all the damn time!).  Usually they’re grown as a container plant but in warm climates they can be planted outdoors.  In a perfect world, they can grow to upwards of 5’ tall but mostly they get to be 2-3 feet tall.  They have a swollen lower trunk (thus the name Buddha Belly or Gout Plant), green leaves that look similar to maple leaves, and coral colored flowers.  Like many succulents, they don’t require a great deal of maintenance.  Their flowers attract butterflies.  Oh, and don’t lick it – the sap is poisonous. 

This plant likes full to partial sun (here, I’m going with partial – our full sun is HOT!!)  Water plants deeply once or twice each week and allow the soil to dry out in between waterings. Come fall, the plant will drop its leaves and become dormant. Stop watering all together – then start up again in the spring.  Fertilize each month during spring and summer.  It can be prone to scale and mealy bugs.  If that happens, spray with insecticidal soap, available at most garden centers or make your own - mix 1 tablespoon of liquid dish detergent with 1 quart of water and put the mixture in a spray bottle.  Buddha Belly is cold sensitive so you will need to protect it if planted in the ground or bring it inside if in a container.

This is my first time to grow Buddha Belly so I’ll try to post another picture of it one day when it’s grown up to (hopefully) look like this.

Another of the plant sale plants I got is Homalocladium platycladum or Ribbon Plant.  I didn’t just refer to it by the common name because there are a great big bunch of plants out there with the common name of Ribbon Plant.  It’s also called Tapeworm Plant (ick, don’t care for that at all) or Centipede Plant (better, but I’m going with Ribbon). 

This is a member of the Knotweed family and is from the Solomon Islands.  It is an evergreen shrub with flat green stems and really no leaves.  Well, it does make little leaves at the joint but they turn into the flat stem.  It grows both like a shrub and a climber, has tiny, short-lived flowers that come out in late spring, and grows really a lot depending on where it is. 

It grows best in partial shade, although I did read it also likes full sun.  However, you want to keep the soil moist and here, that’s really difficult in full sun.  I’m keeping mine in bright shade.  It will grow in most any soil from a sandy loam to moderate clay.  Ribbon Plant will suffer drought poorly and will go limp and bedraggled easily.  One of the facts I read says it will dieback at the tips in drier climates so keep the humidity at least 50% (hahahahaha – oh, no problems there). Fertilize it monthly during the growing season.

I had one of these plants long years ago.  It didn’t survive the move to Colorado.  I am more hopeful for the new one.

Take care

Letters

I have an ongoing project.  Somehow, I’ve acquired a variety of letters and I’ve been transcribing them.  Partly because they’re part of my family history.  Partly because I am fearful the paper letters will be destroyed or damaged or lost.  And, partly because they show us a different time and place and thought process and person. 

Letters written (1908) to and from my great aunt and uncle.  My Great Uncle T (Terrell) wrote love letters to my Great Aunt K (Callie) before they were married.  He worked for the railroad and was some distance from her.  They were sweet, tender letters telling her how much he cared and missed her. 

“Sweetheart I wish I could tell you just how dearly I love you but I caint.  I will just say that you are the dearest one on earth to me and I am only waiting for the time to come where I can take you in my armes and call you my one dear sweet wife my life long companion.” 

Her letters back were full of concern and insecurity.

“You are so good & generous.  I know you will spoil me.  I don’t know how it is Dear that you can love so well a little old whimsical bony ugly girl like me but you said for me to please not grumble at myself.  I wont no more but you know I don’t wont to deceive you dear & I think I have got the best sweetheart in the whole world.”

Letters written (1939-1950) to my Mother by her English pen pal. 

“I saw your name in the pen-pal page of the Famous Funnies so I thought I would write to you.  Over here we get American comics two months later than you do.  We have to pay 2 pennies for them that is 4 cents.  The latest movies that have come round here are Mickey Rooney in Huckleberry Fin and Men with Wings.  My favorite hobby is model airplane building.  Could you tell me what “candy” really is, we keep on hearing it on the movies that we wonder what it is.” 

Letters written (1944) to my great aunt from a nephew POW during WWII. (He was a POW from 1942 to 1945 but was not able to contact family until 1944.)

“The Japanese authorities have been kind enough to grant the War Prisoners permission to write letters to the United Sates so I take this opportunity to let you and the folks know that I am alive and well.”

And letters from complete strangers (1944) that heard over the radio that this man was alive and a prisoner of war, in case his family didn’t know.  There were many dozens of those letters, notes, postcards.

“I picked up a message over my radio on April 9, 1944 from …..”

Letters written (1942-1946) to my Father by his buddies during World War II. 

“You may not receive this for some time but I’ll start you a few lines anyway just to keep in touch.  As you can see, I have finally begun that long awaited journey across the ocean and believe me brother there is plenty of water in these parts!  I didn’t know it was possible to ride so long and see nothing but water!”

In addition to showing a different time and place, these letters show a side of individuals I had never seen.  For instance, my great aunt and uncle were always old to me.  Yet their letters revel a young romantic side to both.  My father was ….. well, my father.  The letters from his buddies show they were young and capable of getting into all sorts of mischief.  The letters written during the war were all similar in that they very seldom mentioned the actual act of waring.  Mother’s pen pal, a young boy of 12 or 13 was already living in war-torn England but he writes about the kind of music he likes (jazz) or things happening in school and comments briefly that the bombings “aren’t so bad”.  My relative that was a POW wrote about people at home. 

I find it sad that letter “writing” is something we no longer do.  We can call just about anywhere, skype, or email.  Not the same.  Pretty handwriting has gone by the wayside.  Too bad. 

And, I’m as guilty as the next person.  I used to write letters to greats and grands and parents, aunts and uncles but with the advent of the internet, I never actually use paper and pen.  I do still write the occasional letter but they magically zip from my computer to another but not the same.  Ah well. 

I worry a bit there will be no written record and that my great grandchildren won’t know who I was.

Take care.

Epilogue

So, you may remember my post of several days ago –

 29 May, “For the love of fishing”.  Previously:  Two enthusiastic fishermen, while exploring, found a small lake with fishing possibilities.  It was somewhat secluded (good thing) but located on private property (not so good) plus the water inside the lake was private – owned by a 2^nd party (also not so good).  The only problem with this lovely gem besides being owned by others, was the lack of a boat ramp.  These two eager individuals decided to build one (for the private lake with private water) themselves.  In the process, they managed to get a large trackhoe stuck in the mud and then ….. it sunk in the mud in the private lake filled with private water.  At last they decided to 1. Get a bulldozer – a really big bulldozer; 2. Hire a diver to attach cables; 3. Pull the trackhoe out of the water. 

Epilogue

 The trackhoe is still in the lake (possibly to become a permanent fixture – Lake Art).  The diver went down to check the situation and it seems the trackhoe is deeply stuck, wedged, fixed, trapped, caught, jammed in the mud.  Bulldozer is not getting it out.

“O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!”

William Shakespeare

What to do ….. what to do…….

 Or

Or

Leave the galaxy, I say.

Take care