Chocolate Suicide

On the food court at Paseo Festival of the Arts ... Oklahoma City, OK. 

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Chocolate Suicide

Pizza!!!

Homemade tomato pizza by Jo.

Enjoyed a delicious homemade, homegrown tomato pizza for supper this evening, and it was cooked outdoors on the gas grill so we didn't have to turn on the oven and heat up the house.


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Pizza!!!

Playing Cello For Fun and Profit

Paseo Festival of the Arts ... Oklahoma City, OK

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Harp Hands

Harp Hands

Smoky Hill River Festival ... Salina, KS

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Harp Hands

Copano Bay Causeway

Copano Bay Causeway

Heading north on Texas Highway 35 across Copano Bay on our trip back to Arkansas from Aransas Pass.  The Copano Bay Causeway is 9,230 feet (2813 meters) long, was completed in 1966 and is official know as the President Lyndon B Johnson Causeway.

To the left in the photo is the old causeway which is now a fishing pier operated by the Aransas County Navigation District.  The old causeway was constructed of timbers supporting a concrete slab and is only 20 feet (6 meters) wide.  I'm glad the old causeway was replaced two years before I got my first car so I never had the pleasure of driving across that long, narrow span.

The new causeway has a raise section which allows larger boats to enter the northern half of Copano Bay.  The old causeway had a draw bridge.  The bridge section was removed so it's actually now two different fishing piers with a gap in the middle.  The causeway and piers are located just north of the Rockport/Fulton area on the Texas coast.

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Copano Bay Causeway

Rain Moving In

Rain Moving Inland

Sitting in the van on the point at Conn Brown Harbor in Aransas Pass, TX, watching rain squalls move inland from the bay. The bridge crosses the Intracoastal Canal on Highway 361. The rain squalls were generated by Hurricane Alex which was moving into northern Mexico.

Rain Arrives

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Rain Moving In

Garlic Harvest

Jo is digging our garlic.  As with most things that happen around here, we're getting the garlic out of the ground a little behind schedule. That's really not a problem since our weather has been so dry.  Wetter weather would have caused the garlic bulbs to rot.  Voles and mice love dining on our potatoes while they are still in the ground, but don't care for garlic.

Rusty and Bucket think they deserve a share of everything harvested in the garden.  They are going through the motions of begging for garlic, but didn't really put up too much of a fuss since even Bucket won't munch out on a garlic bulb.

Jo is heading back to the garden cart with another handful of garlic.  We grow an older stiffneck (or hardneck) variety.  Our original bulbs were a gift from a friend.  I'm not certain of the exact variety, though it's probably a Rocambole.  As this garlic reaches maturity, it sends up shoots.  Tiny garlic bulbs (called scapes) form at the end of the shoots.  When the shoots first appear, they are curved into a circle.  As the garlic matures, the stems gradually straighten.   At full maturity, they are pointing straight up.  You are supposed to pinch off the scapes.  This secondary means of reproduction doesn't benefit the gardener and is said to rob some of the plants resources that would otherwise go into producing a larger underground bulb.  We failed to pinch off all the scapes this year.  In our very unscientific experiment, neither Jo nor I could see a difference in bulb size between plants with and without scapes.

A small part of our garlic harvest.  The bulbs now need to dry a bit more.  Jo will cut off the stems and select some of the cloves for replanting.  Here in Arkansas, we plant garlic in the fall.  The plants come up and then go dormant over winter.  Once spring arrives, the garlic begins growing again and completes its life cycle.  We'll use some of the garlic fresh, but most will go into the deep freeze providing us with a year around supply.

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Garlic Harvest

No Camping

Roberts' Point Park in Port Aransas, TX.  (A nice little park, but don't bother bringing your tent.)

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No Camping

Potato Harvest

New Potatoes

Jo and I dug 67 pounds of potatoes Friday evening. Our harvest would probably have been closer to 80 pounds had the mice/voles not munched out on so many spuds. We were a little late digging our potatoes this year because we were gone or busy getting ready to leave when they should have been dug. Leaving them in the ground longer than necessary no doubt contributed to the lose to the rodents.

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Potato Harvest

Home To Arkansas

Rain On Highway 35

Jo and I headed home from our visit in Aransas Pass on Wednesday afternoon around four o'clock. Rain squalls from Hurricane Alex were moving inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the time the rain was light to moderate. Sometimes we were between rain showers. The worst section was just north of Rockport heading toward Tivoli on Texas Highway 35. Rain was heavy, wind was gusting and that old highway was holding a lot of rain water. Between the wind and hydroplaning, our van wanted to slip and slide all over the place. Jo's grip on the steering wheel was tight, but she handled the driving well.

At Tivoli we turned north. The rain and wind lessened a little. Jo got us through Houston and drove until around eight o'clock. We bought gas in Cleveland and I took over the driving duties. The rain and wind continued backing off as we drove north and east heading back to Arkansas. By the time we reached Texarkana, we'd left the rain behind. We stopped at the Welcome Center east of Texarkana and again for gasoline in Conway. The temperature was noticeably cooler when we climbed out of the van in Conway, a pleasant welcome back to the Ozarks. We finally arrived home around six o'clock Thursday morning, completing our 14 hour, 750 mile trip.

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Home To Arkansas