I deep fried a turkey for our Christmas dinner, held on Dec. 27, and lived to tell the tale.
Luckily, I didn’t watch the many videos of turkey fryer explosions before doing so. A Portland, Oregon television station compiled a stellar array of “Hold my beer” clips showing primarily men (of course) risking death-by-boiling-oil while deep frying a turkey. There were videos of clueless alpha males in shorts and flip flops deep frying a turkey inside a garage next to a wall; trying to extinguish a cooking-oil fire with a water hose; or cramming a 15-pound turkey into a too-small pot. In one video,...
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It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
— “River,” by Joni Mitchell
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Several mature water oak trees dot the front pasture, which is about three acres of Bahia grass leading to the highway. We set up some outdoor furniture beneath one of the trees. It is my favorite place to read when the weather is nice. Sometimes I nod off on a Sunday afternoon, lulled by the breeze whispering through the branches, the distant sound of traffic. I never sleep for long, maybe 15 minutes, then return to whatever book...
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A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.
— Louis Nizer
By the adage above, written by an acclaimed attorney and author (he successfully represented humorist John Henry Faulk in his libel case against a far-right anti-Communist group), Marcos Nuñez is an artist. His medium is tile and wood. As I write this, he and his wife, Sonja, are installing ceramic tile in all three of the bedrooms in our new place out in the country. They have already ripped the carpet...
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After spending hours transcribing 1840-era newspaper articles, it was time to quit typing and take a walk in the woods. A cold front had pushed through the previous evening, with a scattering of rain — a rare commodity these days. It was windy and clear, cool enough to walk comfortably wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and boots. I learned early on that wearing boots while walking our woods is safer and more comfortable than sneakers.
The wind was stripping the oaks and sweetgums of the scattering of leaves that had clung to their branches. The little cedar saplings — nature’s Christmas trees...
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AUSTIN — I am taking another deep dive into the 1840s, inside the Lorenzo de Zavala State Archives and Library, a handsome structure located on the east side of the Capitol grounds. I was last here in late March, perusing through printed copies of the San Augustine Red-Lander for a book project. I had planned to return much sooner, but life intervened — selling one house, buying another, tackling the task of taming 57 acres of mainly timber but still with plenty to mow.
The grass is at last fallow, so I booked my usual hotel by Lady Bird Lake and planned with the good folks in the archives...
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I am working in a nearly deserted library this evening, my last shift of the semester. I won’t return until Jan. 3, the start of a new year. As I have for at least the past 15 years, I marvel how quickly time passes these days and also how events that were only a few months ago seem a distant memory. Time is both compressed and elongated. It seems as if we have lived in this house out in the country forever, but it has been barely four months. And it seems as if just yesterday we watched a new president inaugurated a scant two weeks after an insurrection threatened to overturn the results of the election....
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There’s a new four-legged member of the family. Pancho the Donkey is on long-term loan from Jim, the youngest brother of my Beautiful Mystery Companion. Pancho is now safely ensconced in the pasture behind our house — with its fences repaired, a shed in which to get out of the rain (a rare event, lately), a fresh round bale of hay, and a plastic barrel cut in half to hold a bucket of sweet feed.
My BMC stopped at the Big Box Store before Pancho arrived and bought two large boxes of granola bars. That is one of his favorite treats. Pancho eats out of her hand like a very large dog — roughly...
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More tales from the farm, which is a project with no perceived end.
I am slowly learning how useful a tractor can be, not just for mowing but for hauling limbs to the burn pile and pulling up downed fence line. Our medium-sized machine has a bucket as well as the bushhog and a separate box blade. Last Friday, I paid a fellow to build new fence on the piece of land behind our house. Glade Creek, which cuts through the east side, overflows its banks on occasion and took down a wide swath of fence before we bought the place. Several hundred feet of fence remain in disrepair. Fixing up this place...
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The tree mulcher arrived at our place on Saturday morning.
This beast was a Barko 930B with tires that are 5 feet tall, a 9-foot-wide set of blades in the front, an enclosed cab on top. It weighs more than 30,000 pounds and can turn a full-sized sweetgum tree into mulch in about a minute. A family out of Daingerfield runs a land-clearing company, which includes forestry mulching. We hired the owner’s operator to spend a dozen hours clearing as much of our 57 acres as possible of the trash trees – willow and sweetgum, mainly – that came to dominate the property in front, since it was not maintained...
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It was beginning to look as if we would not be able to escape from the Gilmer square last Saturday morning.
My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I had driven up to watch the East Texas Yamboree Queen’s parade because our nephew, Connor, was marching with the Harmony High School Band. He plays trombone and is also a talented pianist. However, it’s not practical to march while playing a piano.
The Yamboree began in 1935. Like most everything else, last year’s was canceled, and there was a three-year hiatus during World War II. Other than those years, the Yamboree has been a Northeast Texas...
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