texas

Flocks, Herds & Fleets

/ Janna Hill / 4 Comments

Flocks, Herds & Fleets

I had a hard time deciding on the above title or Turkeys, Trucks, Cows & Churches. Sometimes less is more… or better… or more better. Anyway this is more better. 😉

In response to this week’s photo challenge I snapped a few shots on my way home. It’s a short drive (less than ten miles) of rural countryside but I was amazed at the various communes within my own community. The whole thing made me think deeply about worlds inside worlds… circles inside circles…

Thank goodness the wild turkeys came into view and kept me from thinking myself to death.

Weekly Photo Challenge (Combining Hues & Horizons)

/ Janna Hill / 23 Comments

These photos are recycled from older posts but they will work for the challenge(s): The Hue of You and Horizons.

This is me. These colors are the sum of my parts and they bring me peace. That along with the unfaltering hope that what lies beyond the next horizon will be all I ever dreamed of.

 

Lake Fork at Sunset
Mardi Gras Sky
Spying on young lover’s Lake Tawakoni
Evenings to be Savored
Another day ending Lake Tawakoni
Touching the sky at Keller Bay
Breaking Dawn South Texas
Navarro Mills Lake at Day Break

We are what we eat, what we breathe and what we believe.  Eat to nourish the body, breathe to soothe the soul and believe the sky is the the limit.

_jrh

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fleeting

/ Janna Hill / 17 Comments

Fleeting

We went fishing Saturday and my oh my how the time flew by.

Okay the truth is the guys fished while we (my granddaughter and moi) took pictures. We of course caught a lot more of what we were after. As a matter of fact the two of us snagged nearly two hundred shots yet three men with six tackle boxes and four rods couldn’t catch a single fish! Not even a catfish! In a lake as large as Tawakoni that takes some real lack of skill. 😉

My husband says I shouldn’t poke fun being as I have a serious case of lack-a-jerk. True, the fish are usually too fast for me but a desperate fisherman resorting to the ritual of the frog dive, that I can catch.

 

Assume the frog position
Leap lamely from the bow
Call “fishy, fishy, fishy”
See fish laugh

The dive left the fish laughing so hard they couldn’t bite. Have you ever tried to laugh and eat at the same time? It is hard to do. It is hard being a fish, I understand these things. It’s also illegal to be on the water at night without the proper lights (which we had left in the truck) so we turned starboard heading to shore and watched the sun set on another beautiful day… another fleeting moment in time.

Starboard turn
Into the setting sun
Another day ending Lake Tawakoni
Another fleeting moment

See how time flies…

How time flies

How time flies

The Last Man Standing

/ Janna Hill / 10 Comments

We went for the annual camp-out this past weekend. I expected a small crowd and a somber mood considering it was our first gathering on the lake since my dear aunt left this world last June and this was her thing, she loved it.

Only thirty five or forty of us were in attendance so the crowd was small but the mood was far from somber. I should have known better than to think that.

We do not dwell on sorrow. No, we mustn’t… we cannot.  And we did not. Instead we laughed and reminisced about our rambunctious youth spent on the shores of Navarro Mills.  A time when our numbers were more, a time when strength and stamina ran hard through our veins, a time when we were too confident to recognize the gift.

Remembering makes us aware of our weakness but we remember anyway because it also brings us comfort. These are my memories:

I remember tents dotting the landscape, fried eggs on an open campfire, horse shoes clanking, blankets of bluebonnets, chasing birds along the banks and walking for miles in the sweltering heat. Swimming in the murky water, boat rides, the smell of roasted marshmallows and fishing along the shoreline. I remember crystal clear nights and counting stars until we fell asleep, long walks to the toilet, frigid dawns stealing slumber, and anxiously awaiting the next sunrise so we could do it all again.

With nostalgia I watch our children and grandchildren between sneaking stares at the last man standing (my father’s baby brother) and hope they understand what this gathering silently implies, these things you must remember.

Navarro Mills Lake at Day Break

The Bluebird’s are Here

/ Janna Hill / 5 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I posted a photo (Marching Into Spring) of  a Bluebird’s nest. I’m excited to report that they have hatched and their appetites are intact. hungry bird (1280x1109)Aren’t they a wriggling lump of ugly? Yes they are but that will change soon. I may try for a better shot when the father is not flogging the back of my head.

The Anole and I

/ Janna Hill / 12 Comments
Native Texans

I learned something new today. What I have always called a Chameleon is actually an Anole. Ah-know-lee, it sounds very French, doesn’t it? [Well kick me runnin’ I happen to know a little French]

The Anole

Tending the herb box

 

Fact: They change colors like the Chameleon but are more closely related to the Iguana. Très el strange`o as hell I know. I also know they consume pesky little insects but I did not know that Anoles eat snails! That definitely sounds French.

The Anole and I have a lot in common. Okay maybe just a couple of things because I’m not eating a damn snail- not willingly anyway. Well maybe if it were fried and crispy… or pureed and stirred into a fruit smoothie. Oops I just puked a little. Sorry. I’m sure the French word for puke would probably sound less vulgar. Heck if they can get people to devour something so slimy and creepy by calling it escargot surely they have an elegant word for puke.

Around here we’ll leave the eating of invertebrates to the Anole. The truth is the only thing we have in common is that we are both native Texans scrounging in the same box of dirt.

Marching Into Spring

/ Janna Hill / 11 Comments

If the old folks in East Texas are right we will have another cold snap so don’t plant your tomatoes yet. I’m not in any hurry, after all we are just getting to the Ides of March and the Spring Equinox is still a week away. What does all of that mean? I could write about it but I’m afraid it would bore you straight to death and I don’t want to be listed on your death certificate as the official cause so how about I show you some pictures instead? Okay! Moving right along…

From the Bluebird outside my window.
Jonquils
Looks like me without coffee.
Pretty purples
The Eight Spotted Forester Moth

How I met Maggie and Almost Killed Clara

/ Janna Hill / 7 Comments

I was wading in the surf on Matagorda beach one warm, sunny day exchanging dialogue with Clara.

I had known Clara for about ten years and I have to admit, conversing with her was like pulling teeth. I don’t want to say she was dull, but she was too quiet and a tad introverted. Don’t get me wrong, she is a lovely girl. She is smart and pretty and sweet and kind, but she was just too darn nice for the most part. Too calm, too reasonable, too… dull! There, I said it!

Anyway, as I was wading in the surf, dragging my feet (literally to scatter the sting rays) I was thinking how I might kill her. I know that must sound horrible, we had been comrades for so long, but she wearied me. Her unspoiled, hoity-toity, prim and proper, everything by the book personality made me want to send her sailing face down with the outgoing tide. I think she knew it (she has a sixth sense thing, you know) and I figured she wasn’t going to fight me. It wasn’t in her nature. I thought maybe she wanted to die?

I had mulled it over and finally come to terms with the decision when a perky little blonde came running down the beach waving and shouting,

“Hey y’all wait for me.”

Oh my lord, I thought, while trying to ignore the thin, tanned Mississippian’s approach. I quickly shoved Clara toward the incoming wave but her feet were planted too firmly — she didn’t budge, and to my surprise she pushed back!

“Do you know her?” I asked.

Clara shook her head slowly and replied, “No but you do. You met her on a trip to Biloxi once.”

I was speechless.

“Hey, I’m Maggie,” the lady smiled as she looked past me and held out her hand, “you must be Clara.”

I suppose it’s true that opposites attract. I watched Maggie come alive and in doing so she saved Clara.

*This is a story about a story. Clara and Maggie are safe and sound (for the most part) inside a fictional series.

Read about their meeting in Book 1