Today is Ostara (the Vernal Equinox). Yea!
Spring is now officially here.
Quick while it’s sunny, go outside and enjoy all the beautiful flowers,
the new “spring green” the trees are producing, mild temperatures, and blue
skies. Walk your neighborhood, work in
the garden, visit a state park. We’ve
all been trapped inside with dreary, rainy, cloudy, chilly weather so go
outside NOW!
Yesterday a friend and I had a day
long of adventuring. We left here early
and drove to Brenham.
Brenham is the county seat of Washington
County in south central Texas and is known as the “heart of Bluebonnet
country”. It has one other major
attribute. It is the home of the Blue
Bell Creamery (the-best- ice-cream-in-the-world).
The highway between here and there
tends to be bright with wild flower color from March to April. There weren’t as many blooming as we’d hoped
– probably due the late cold snap – but the ones we did see were beautiful.
We did see several large groves of
Acacia trees in bloom. I think I need
one of these. The flowers are cute
little round yellow fuzzy balls.
First stop in Brenham, was, of
course, the creamery.
You can tour (sort of) the
creamery and watch as containers are filled and sent along to the cold room
(-40° cold). It was interesting to watch
and honest-to-god, if I worked there, I’d weigh 500 pounds. I can remember when you could only get Blue
Bell in Brenham and Houston (1960’s).
They expanded to the rest of Texas and then, by 1990
Nice.
And, yes, while we were there, at
11AM, before lunch, we had ice cream. One
scoop = $1. One scoop was huge! My favorite – Moo-llennium Crunch. Full of all kinds of really good stuff.
Our next stop was to be The
Antique Rose Emporium in Independence, TX.
Independence is
an unincorporated community northeast of Brenham. It was founded in 1835 and was the center of
the Republic of Texas. In 1845 it became
the first site of Baylor University and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Unfortunately, Independence declined giving a
right-of-way to the railroad, saying the Brazos River would always be
transportation king and faded into obscurity.
To get there, Siri took us via all
the small back roads, which was nice. While
traveling down one stretch, we came across a number of large properties with
gates guarded by
Honest-to-god,
these guys were the size of
real live deer!
Ooookay. Pass on driving
in there.
in there.
Maybe they're a rock band
Guns, Bucks, and Eagles
There was one more, which I didn’t
get a picture of unfortunately ---- carousel horses. Sort of didn’t fit with the others. Still I like merry-go-rounds so those worked
ok for me.
The Antique Rose Emporium is a
wonderful place to visit. Not only do
they have an amazing selection of antique roses, they also have a huge assortment
of anything else you might want. And, if
you don’t want to buy anything – go for the gardens. The grounds are massive and include several
buildings – like a small church, a farm house, two or three out building all
nestled among well-tended flower beds.
Just a few of the things that
caught my attention
Oh, and this. I neeeeeeeeed one of these!
It’s like a million feet tall and
made from rebar. This one is planted
with roses! How cool is this!
Ok, now I have to stop and
continue with the adventure tomorrow or, I’ll miss today.
20
Mar 2019
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