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Along the Natchez Trace

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Rain... and more rain....

Okay...  like everyone else, we got rain...


Don't know how well you can read this...  but our rain gauge showed over 3" of rain in the past 24 hours.  Remember...  we are staying in a part of Texas that has suffered severe drought!  Surely all this rain will allieveate that?

It finally slacked off this morning so Bill & I drove down the County Road to see what the river crossing  looked like....
Closed!  As We'd expected.  The Paluxy River was moving along swift and with plenty of debris....  obviously NOT a way to drive into town.

Even the ditches were full to overflowing...  our little Scion can go through these kinds of crossings, but anything much deeper and I suppose we'd hydroplane and float right off over the edge!

We didn't have much else to do, so thought we'd drive the 30 miles or so down to Stephenville.  Of   course we took the county roads...  back country...  and this one goes right along the Paluxy River...  But on the opposite bank are gorgeous rock formations...
And now...  even beautiful waterfalls...
Scenes like this are all along this road...  which connects our county road with another county road, which eventually will take us to Stephenville.

Why do we like to go to Stephenville... well...  the Ace Hardware there has EVERYTHING!  While Bill is checking out hardware and building materials, I head for the HUGE kitchenware department...
This room is HUGE...  has every kitchen gadget imaginable...  plus a few hundred that I hadn't even conjured up in my dreams.  I'm a sucker for gadgets...  I love to cook...  love all the various "conveniences" that you can use....  am willing to try any and all receipes.  And, most of all, love to eat.  I usually come away with something to hold stuffed jalepenos... or a minature potato masher that is just perfect to make guacomole...   something.... exotic....  totally bizarre...  but I just can't resist.

But today, instead of kitchen stuff,  I bought a new hummingbird feeder in their wildlife department...  one that you can clean without having to have a bottle brush...  YES!  How cool is that!

Of couse I took a circular trip back home...  went through Granbury so Bill could get a part for a compressor...  he's installing a fan in Celeste's attic and needed more parts.

Finally, after lunch at Subway...  we made it back to Glen Rose. 

The rain has really brought out the wildflowers....
The bluebonnets are thriving....
 
This is just behind our rig... in Celeste's side yard...  it's covered with Blue bonnets!!!!

And...  look who visited today....
A Spotted towhee

Now, if you're a Buckeye, like me, you think of the Eastern Towhee...  so when your eye catches one of these guys, you do a double take.  Ah...  yes...  I'm in the west now....

And, speaking of, I was looking for another book, and darned if I didn't find my Peterson's Field Guide to Southwestern and Texas Wildflowers...

No excuse now for not identifying all these gorgeous plants that are in bloom!


The rain is over...  even the wind has died down.  We have put our satellite dish back up and are back in the communications business. 

Dinner tonight was grilled shrimp wrapped in green chiles and bacon... along with some grilled veggies....  

What more could a girl ask for?

That's All for Today....



8 comments:

  1. Thanks for the update on the area, we were there a week ago and just love it. Will be back again!

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  2. Yes, I haven't been there in a while... I enjoyed Granbury very much ... love the pictures!

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  3. Nice pics! That is a lot of stuff in the Ace hardware! I love the pics of the bluebonnets.

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  4. Beautiful photos! Lovely blog; I'm a new follower!
    So nice to meet you!
    Best,
    Anne ♥♥

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  5. Really like your blog - am putting you on my blogroll!

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  6. Great pictures. That looks like a great store. Reminds me of a hardware store in Placerville, CA. That place claims to be the oldest hardware store west of the Mississippi and it has lots and lots of gadgets. Such fun.

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  7. OK...about your shrimp recipe..Do you bend these suckers over and wrap the bacon and chilis around them....or do you leave them open and wrap that way...I did the latter and it took me FOREVER to wrap those shrimpers up!! Love the recipe, and want to do it again..but standing and wrapping for an hour is against my religion...:-))

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    1. Funny you should ask... I just fixed these again a couple of nights ago. I think I had about 50 shrimp in all, a pound of bacon and a BIG can of Hatch's green chiles. These shrimp were fairly large which made handling them a lot easier. I cut the bacon in strips about 1/4" wide.... same with the green chiles. Then I attempt to wrap a chile around the shrimp, followed by a strip of bacon... then skewer it on a kabob stick. The first stick is fairly neat... nicely wrapped. Then I'm getting tired of standing... the next stick I have stuff sticking out in places... I started sliding chunks of peppers, onions, zucchini... between the shrimps to try to hold it together. I started arranging colors... green pepper, yellow pepper, orange pepper... all artfully arranged between shrimps. I start just laying a green chile chunk down on the shrimp and wrapping it in bacon. By the 5th or 6th stick I'm on my 2nd glass of wine and just wrapping and shoving it on as I grab it. The last stick is finally done... I have some leftover parts... Everything is laying on the rack on my grill pan... I sling the leftover stuff on top and put it in the oven @ 350* and sit down with the wine... swearing I'll never fix this again..... But I do....

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