THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER

We have a thin covering of ice and snow at the rancho where it’s 22 degrees F.

A second night of temps falling into the teens ahead, after having not gotten out of the mid-twenties all day. The elephant ears at the rancho have turned black and fallen on the ground, just like last year. Likewise the plumbago and the turk’s cap. They’ll all grow back, they always have before. At least [...]

I feel like a curmudgeon chasing children off the lawn when I yell or clap my hands to get four or five white-tailed deer off the front lawn. But, in addition to their poop, which accumulates, they are stupid enough to try to jump through a window as they did here. Our local pols, of [...]

The strange thing is that TS Hermine, which was forecast to be no more than a depression by the time it swept through Austin was, instead, still a storm. Consequently, we got a lot of rain, and 40 mph winds, and some area creeks are out of their banks, some trees are down and some [...]

Shootout, Gunfight, Ammunition and Shotgun are street names that, at least in South Austin, hinder home sales. That’s according to a publicity-minded Austin realtor’s unscientific (but persuasive) research. Could be unique to Austin (the San Francisco of Texas) or else that the neighborhood in question isn’t all that desirable to begin with. Via Dustbury.

The fabled Ten Commandments monument on the Texas Capitol lawn that has, since its erection in 1961, periodically driven atheists and the ACLU mad. Heh.

This was taken a few weeks ago. But I figured if I didn’t run it soon, it’d really look silly when the daytime temps are in the 80s everyday, instead of just occasionally as they are now. This snowfall was a rare event for us.

Hard to believe they could find anyone to rent this place for $350 a night. But they apparently do, according to the piece in today’s issue of the daily. New Yorkers, mostly, I imagine. Who else? I was struck by the article and these photos on the rental site because I used to own a [...]

Finally departing west on the radar after coming in from the east about half an hour ago. Ponding all over the Back Forty, and out front. Really poured. Looks like at least an inch. Good show. We needed that.

We thought the smoke in the air yesterday was the usual spring influx from the Chiapan farmers of southern Mexico burning the scrub off their fields to prepare for planting. But it was actually coming from the northwest, above Fort Worth, where the drought-induced wildfires have burned-out a couple of small towns. Since some one [...]