Just Horsin' Around - Thoughts on Central Texas Real Estate and More

There's lots to do in Central Texas, and in the springtime, even more!  Here's a sampling of events you might want to try.  There's bound to be something to interest you!

April 1:

TDHMA Plow Day.  Texas Draft Horse and Mule Association Plow Day in Tolar.   

April 1-20:

National Cutting Horse Association 2008 Super Stakes & Super Stakes Classic.  If you're into cutting horses, no explanation necessary.

April 3-6:

CNU XVI: New Urbanism & the Booming Metropolis.   Conference on New Urbanism, green building, how communities can maintain their character while welcoming new development, and more.

Heart of Texas Morgan Horse Club Open Fun Show.  A fun show, with the emphasis on "fun", open to all breeds.  (In the interests of full disclosure:  I'm the Show Secretary and a founding member of HOTMHC - it was born at a meeting in my living room.)

April 4-6:

Urban Music Festival.   The Urban LIFE Group (ULG) — in partnership with the City of Austin, local businesses and organizations — will create a weekend of events targeting African Americans from throughout Texas, the Southwest region and around the nation.

April 5:

Louisiana Swamp Thing and Crawfish Festival 2008.  It's all about the food and the music! This popular Louisiana themed event features the best in Louisiana cuisine prepared by concessionaires from Louisiana and Texas. Enjoy an extensive menu of Cajun seafood. The highlight of the show is 6000 pounds of jumbo crawfish and other bayou favorites. Enjoy dancers, juju mamas, and lots of beads and tokens. Music includes Cajun, Zydeco, Funk, Brass Bands, Blues, Rock, & Jazz . Belly dancers and late night burlesque shows will add to the excitement.

Keep Austin Beautiful Clean Sweep 2008.   Join your neighbors in volunteer squads to clean up our fair city, and then party together!  

April 10-11:

Austin International Poetry Festival 2008.   The world's largest nonjuried poetry festival.

April 10-13:

Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival.   Food, wine, great chefs, classes, tours, and more.  Me, I'm going to the Sunday Fair in San Gabriel Park on Sunday afternoon - all of that in one place, woo hoo!

April 13: 

Schlotsky's Bun Run 2008.   26 years and still running strong.

April 17-20:

Old Settlers' Music Festival.  Since 1987, Americana, arts & crafts, camping, food & libations. Acoustic jazz & blues, bluegrass, old-time local faves & award-winning artists from around the world.

April 19:

Women and Their Work 30th Anniversary Art Party.  15 screens, interactive art, video fun, celebrating 30 years of Women and Their Work. 

4-H Williamson County Hoofpicks Open Horse Show Series.  Georgetown Show Barn, Georgetown, TX.   

April 24:

Umlauf Garden Party, held at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden, Honorary Chair Marcia Ball, Featured Artist Gordon Fowler, music, food, silent auction, sculpture, and more.  Tickets on sale now.  

April 26: 

Eeyore's 45th Birthday Party.  Costumes, drumming, food, costumes, drink, fun in the sun, did I mention costumes?  Classic Austin fun; remember to wear a costume!  And bring a camera!  Fundraiser for Austin nonprofits.  How many places can you have this much fun and do good at the same time?  (Well, in Austin, quite a lot, really.)

Going green in the country is nothing new – country folk have been doing it for centuries.  However, they haven’t done it alone – those of us who live in the country have partners in living the green rural lifestyle, and I thought I’d introduce you to a few of them. 

Our organic pest control managers are pictured at right.  That’s right, chickens.  Free range chickens on our place most years cut the fly population down to, oh, four or five house flies a year.  And that’s considering that we have horses and cows! (More on them later.)  They run around and take care of the fly larvae before they have a chance to turn into flying menaces. 

 Our cats and dogs are also members of this team.  The dogs keep predator pests such as raccoons and possums away; the cats are on rodent and rabbit patrol and do an excellent job of keeping the place vermin-free.  (The only rats or mice I've seen in a decade are those that the cats bring to me to demonstrate what a good job they're doing to earn their keep.) 

Other members of our organic pest control squad are goldfish.  We keep the watering tanks stocked with goldfish, who not only keep them algae free, but also assure that no mosquito larvae escapes to drink our blood.  Native fish in the creek and pond serve a similar function. 

Our cows and horses and donkeys are our mowing and fertilization team.  Because of them, we don’t often have to shred the fields, using precious diesel, and they daily produce fertilizer for those same fields.  They are aided by the chickens, of course, when we clean out the coop and use the contents to improve the soil for the vegetable garden.  (Amazing stuff – plants grow twice as large, sometimes, when that fertilizer is used to enhance the soil.  The cows of others also contribute when we have our hay pasture fertilized using soil biology through Sustainable Growth Texas, and we’ve found that weedkilling with chemicals is no longer necessary using soil biology.

These are just a few of the partners we have in going green in the country. When moving to your place in the country, don't forget your partners!  

It's Spring, and in the Spring, a young man (and woman's) thoughts turn to trail riding.  However, these days, it's often not just a matter of heading out to the barn and saddlin' up ol' Blue and hitting the trail.  You have to load ol' Blue up and take him for a ride before you get to have yours.  

People new to the area, and some folks who've lived here a while, don't always know about the various equestrian trails in the area.  So I thought I'd gather together a list of great places to trail ride in Central Texas just for your edification and enjoyment.  Some are day use only, others offer equestrian camping facilities and group trail ride facilities.  Some require that you bring your own horse; others have rentals available in or near the park. 

 Look 'em over, check 'em out, pick one (or several), and ride off into the sunset!

Hill Country State Natural Area 

Lake Somerville 

McKinney Roughs 

Parrie Haynes Ranch 

Pedernales Falls

Texas Equestrian Trail Riders Association is also a good resource and they frequently have rides in their different regions. 

There's more, but that ought to be keep you and ol' Blue busy and satisfied for at least a while!

Head 'em up, move 'em out!  

We may sometimes seem like a sleepy little Texas town to some, but there's a lot going on underneath the surface!  Fortune has named Georgetown #2 in its list of Best Places to Live and Launch because they've discovered what's going on here.  

Georgetown is a great place to live because of the beauty, the variety of homes available from Old Town to Sun City to new subdivisions to country estates just out of town, our historical district, our trail system for hiking and biking, golf courses, Lake Georgetown, the San Gabriel River, Southwestern University, and much, much more.  But it's also a great place for business and for entrepreneurs.  

If you're in Central Texas and looking for a place to live and start a business, don't just stick to Austin.  Drive north just a little bit (as the owner of one of our local businesses used to say, we're "just a conversation away" from Austin) and check out this little Central Texas jewel. I think you'll be pleased by what you find.  And if you do, drop by and have a cup of coffee and I'll give you the Grand Tour.  

Spring is definitely, finally, here in Central Texas.  The first hint was that Memory, she who never sheds until the last frost has definitely come and gone, started releasing her winter coat.  

Then hints of green peeked through the brown grass, with promise of thing to come.  

Today, walking down the drive with the dogs to pick up the mail, I took quick pictures of the flowers that have appeared, as if by magic, in the last day or so.  

First were the little purple flowers under the old plum tree outside our back door.  

Next, the beautiful yellow Iris blooming at the edge of the woods.

As we rounded the corner, the young volunteer plum trees, daughters of the old one, were dressed in their finest spring white and green. 

Further along the side of the drive, we ran across some of the dewberry vines that are blooming, and dreamed of berries to come in weeks ahead.  

Approaching the mailbox, there were the little white wild onions that I remember picking in bouquets for my mother when I was a child.  They bring back fond memories every spring.

 And, finally, tucked into the protection of the side of the ditch, a tiny, delicate, pink buttercup, the first I've seen this spring.  

In every season, we are surrounded by beauty, living here in the country.  This time of year just nudges us to notice a little bit more.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!  And, in the words of the Irishman on being asked if he sees the glass as half empty or half full, "Are ya goin' ta be drinkin' that?"  

It seems the countryside is also celebrating the saint, putting on its green array in honor of the day.  Everywhere I look, green is peeking through the browns and tans, appearing on the tips of peach tree and Texas ash limbs, and glorying in the warmth we're enjoying here at the moment.  The peach trees are blooming, as are the Texas Mountain Laurels with their luscious grape scent.  "Green" (as in environmentally sustainable) expos abound.  The horses are shedding, and telling us that Spring is here!

Enjoy your St. Patrick's Day, and have a pint on me!

Just about everybody who's heard of Austin has also heard the refrain, "Keep Austin Weird".  While that's now been trademarked by latecomers (and NOT by Red Wassenich, the person who came up with it, for whom trademarking is is the antithesis of the meaning of the phrase, and who has a new book out called Keep Austin Weird:  A Guide to the Odd Side of Town), it's still very much a part of what makes Austin the unique community it still is today.  

While, yes, we have the Big Box development, we have "little houses made of ticky tacky, all just the same", we have the highrises that are going in downtown (what DID happen to the Capitol View Corridors that were established specifically to protect against this kind of loss, anyway?), we have the Domain (actually an interesting example of urban living on the edge of town).  

But we also have:

Leslie (yes, he did run for Mayor, just as Max Nofziger, flower salesman extraordinaire and successful candidate, and Crazy Carl Hickerson-Bull did before him)

Eeyore's Birthday Party (which I will be attending this year, in costume, of course)

Hippy Hollow (clothing optional, but somewhat frowned upon - and, yes, this is now an "official" park that gets, evidently, about 350,000 visitors a year, a far cry of the few dozen who knew about and used it back in the day)

The Broken Spoke (been around since forever and a great place to do the two-step - plus rumor hath it that, while the land's been bought and apartments and development are about to loom all around it, the Spoke will remain the same, including the dirt parking lot) 

The Austin Lounge Lizards hail from Austin, as well

Las Manitas, the downtown restaurant that just took on the Marriott and, to all appearances, won, albeit while having to move down the street a few storefronts 

And much, much, MUCH more.  

Hopefully, Austin will remain its own weird self for a long, long time to come.  It is, after all, why people come here, and stay here, and what makes Austin not just another city.  Without our weirdness, all those folks moving to town might as well move to Dallas. 

So come to Austin, and do something, even if just a little, weird.  You'll fit right in, and I promise, no one will look at you funny.  In fact, be weird enough, and you might get a standing ovation! 

It seems that, today, green is all the rage.  It's hot, hot, HOT!  Suddenly, in every magazine, newspaper, online forum, "green" is on everyone's lips (or fingertips).  It's an overnight sensation! 

However, like most overnight sensations, that's not the whole story.  Like the movie star who worked as a carpenter to support his family for twenty years while working as an actor is suddenly "discovered" and, likewise, called an overnight sensation, there were many years of hard work and lack of respect before "Green" became the star she is today. 

In Austin and Central Texas, we were green when green wasn't cool. 

The Dillo Dirt municipal composting program of the City of Austin has been in existence since 1989 - the oldest in the state and one of the oldest in the nation. 

The Austin Energy Green Building Program started in 1991 and is going great guns.

Dr.Mike McElveen and others pioneered rainwater harvesting on a large scale back in the early 1990's (and, of course, rainwater harvesting had been practiced in Texas for decades prior to that, on an individual basis, before city water and in areas where wells weren't practical).

I, personally, can remember strong interest in environmental issues in Austin going back to when I arrived to attend college here, in 1969.  Rachel Carson, Christopher Alexander, and other names were common on the lips of Austin residents back then.  Which, since folks who attend UT in Austin have a very hard time bringing themselves to leave (and had a harder time doing so even then, which is why we seem to have the greatest number of bartenders with graduate degrees anywhere), probably led to all the activity mentioned above, and more.

Now, green is mainstream in Central Texas.  Many municipalities and utility providers in Central Texas provide rebates for installing various energy efficient and environmentally sustainable improvements to your home, new or old, from low flush toilets to solar or wind energy to efficient heating and (especially) cooling equipment to rainwater harvesting systems.  

A new fad?  An overnight sensation?  Not in Central Texas, where we were green when green wasn't cool!  Welcome to the party, folks!  

We live in a flight path - a wonderful, beautiful, joyous flight path. 

You see, our ranch is on a major migration route just east of Jarrell, Texas, so we get to see many of the birds as they pass through (and stop off for a snack and a drink) on their way north or south.  Mostly, they are the same kinds of birds, though once in a while we'll see something different - like the Whooping Crane family who stopped off when their youngster pulled the "sit down on the sidewalk, I'm not gonna walk any more" trick.  (They finally ended up giving up on him and going on their way, while he rested and waited for the Sand Hill Cranes to come through and give him a ride to the meeting grounds where they all get together and then take off their separate ways.)  I've also seen a flock of about 50 hawks.(Didn't know hawks flocked?  Neither did I until I saw it and called my friend at the Austin Nature Center to find out if I'd lost my mind or if I was living in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.)  The geese are usuals, as are the pelicans that fly over so high that you have to use binoculars to identity them.

However, far and away the biggest flocks are of blackbirds - redwinged blackbirds, for the most part, though  there is another kind that I haven't identified. In the last couple of weeks, we've had weird weather, either hot (90's) or cold (upper 20's/lower 30's) but very, VERY windy whichever it was.  This discombobulated the birds passing through, who generally like to hang out in the cane brake next to our driveway - it was way to windy and they were all getting seasick perching on the swaying canes.  So they came over to the trees in our front yard/pasture. 

 Here's what I saw.  Remember, there are NO leaves on these trees at the moment - everything you see is a bird.  I've seen larger flocks, with the trees AND the ground covered in birds, but that was on a still day - still except for the rustling of wings and the twittering of their conversation.  

Spring is turning, and it's festival time!  (Well, it's always festival time in Central Texas, it seems, but we have more in spring and fall when the weather is delightful.) 

I thought I'd share a few of the possibilities - you could probably party all spring long without missing a beat! 

Today, I'm off with the Central Texas Food-Centrics to the Austin Chocolate Festival (yes, we DO celebrate anything and everything). 

Other options, in no particular order: 

Texas Wine & Food Festival (I highly recommend attending Sunday Fair at the end of the festival)

Eeyore's Birthday Party is a longstanding tradition - they're having the 45th this year. 

For more festivals, and more partying, look here.