Barnyard Buddies

Crested Ducks

I'll be absent for a few days from blogland since I'm leaving today for a trip to South Central Texas to ....

Let's just say if I have good luck I'll show you when I return later in the week.  Keep your fingers crossed.  My photo bank is very poor and in dire need of a deposit!

Crabapple

There is nothing more beautiful in the spring than a pink tree!  Our crabapple by the road is the most spectacular this year that I have ever seen, no doubt because of all our rain this winter.  The blooms generally last about a week.  It's sad to think you could take a short trip and completely miss it.

Prairie Verbena

Woodland Violets

Catnap

Nothing compares to a nap under a tree on a warm spring afternoon.

Did I hear a twig bend?

So sleepy.

Can't a fella even get a catnap around here without being disturbed?

Antioch Baptist Church - Shreveport, LA

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Holy Trinity Catholic Church - Shreveport, LA

Across the Street from the Strand

I think everyone who commented on yesterday's photos of the Strand Theater in Shreveport was taken by that beautiful building.  But across the street on the other three corners is a different story.

Once beautiful structures look like victims of war, broken glass, graffiti, razor wire atop chain link fences, trash blowing through them.

This is the innercity.  Scary, huh?  It's amazing that the Strand, smack dab in the middle of this devastation, has continued to be the cultural center that it is.  I'd probably be afraid to even go into this area after dark  It was frightening even on a Saturday afternoon in broad daylight.  I remember as a child my mother would take me to Shreveport to shop for new school clothes.  The downtown had a parklike atmosphere with high-end clothing and shoe stores.  But the Strand still stands.

The Strand Theater - Shreveport

Last weekend I drove over to Shreveport, Louisiana, to do some much needed shopping.  I decided it was time to see if I could find any historic buildings in that Louisiana city.  I knew there had to be some, although the city has been deteriorating the last few decades.  One of the jewels of Shreveport is the historic Strand Theater, and you can see by the marquee that it is still open for business, since I was there Saturday, March 14.  It's incredibly beautiful on the outside and from what I read on the Internet the interior far surpasses the exterior.

It opened in 1925 as a grand opera house and in its earlier years had its own full-time orchestra and a 939-pipe organ.  During the war years all but three of the theater's massive chandeliers were removed and sent to New Orleans during kilowatt rationing.  After the war in the early 1950's the marquee was removed and replaced with a 12-foot vertical neon sign.  In the mid-1950s the opera boxes were removed to facilitate cinemascope motion pictures.  John Wayne and William Holden were at the Strand for the movie premier of The Horse Soldier in 1959.  The Strand continued to operate as a movie theater through the mid-'70s when it closed in a state of sad demise.

In 1976 the owner, ABC Interstate Theatres, donated the Strand to the newly formed Strand Theatre of Shreveport Corporation and a seven-year renovation project was initiated.  The lost chandeliers were copied from early-day photos, the opera boxes were replaced, and the original marquee was replicated and the Strand reopened in Decemer of 1984 to a standing-room only audience at a performance of the Shreveport Symphony.  Today the Strand is the venue for touring Broadway shows, concerts and plays and is the home to several dance companies.  It is considered one of the top five glitziest theaters for live performance in the country.

Tomorrow I'll show you what is across the street from the Strand.

Comal County Courthouse (Texas No. 45)

The Comal County Courthouse in New Braunfels is a white limestone Romanesque Revival style building constructed in 1898.  It was designed by my favorite courthouse architect, J. Riely Gordon.  It is nearly identical to the Lee County Courthouse in Giddings.  (Click here)  However, the resemblance is seldom noticed by the casual observer since the Lee building is constructed of red brick.  I like the red one best.  How about you?

The courthouse has been fully restored at a cost of $8.6 million.  During the restoration the original tile flooring was found at the north entrance of the building as well as the original wallpaper in the district courtroom.  Both of those items were restored and are now again seen in the new building.  The courthouse was rededicated on January 22, 2013, exactly 114 years after its original dedication date.

New Braunfels is located 30 miles north of San Antonio.  The area was settled by German immigrants and the German heritage is still strong.  The current population of New Braunfels is 60,500, an increase of 66 percent from the 2000 census.  The city is 245 miles south of Dallas, 175 miles west of Houston, and 265 miles southwest of Nacogdoches.

Skinny Dipping

Spring burst forth here in East Texas a couple days ago.  The redbud trees finally put on their show and as of yesterday the crabapple tree my mother planted years ago had a slight pink halo around it.  On a quick trip to town I saw these cows skinny dipping in a stock pond.  It was warm enough to turn on the AC in the house (the day before the heater was still running).  I love that little calf with his nose in the air just breathing in the smells of spring.  The horse, as horses usually are, was oblivious to the others who were cooling their heels wading in the pond.

The Visitor

I was watching Good Morning America when I saw the four legs crossing the driveway.  We don't have a lot of dogs in our area that roam around so by the time I untangled myself from the blanket that was keeping me all snug and warm and got to the kitchen window I saw him standing near my truck.  I ran for the camera and of course the memory card was in the computer!  When will I ever learn to put it back in the camera after I've downloaded photos.  I felt certain he would be gone by the time I returned, but not so.    He seemed very unconcerned that I even came outside onto the porch to get a closer shot.  He looked straight at me, even though I had expected him to run the moment I opened the storm door.  It's a little frightening when wild animals aren't afraid of you.  We hear them frequently at night but only occasionally see them in daylight hours and that's usually a chance encounter driving down an infrequently used dirt road in the middle of the forest and they're not expecting humans to be in their path.  I'm sure that with all the rains we've had and with the bottom lands being flooded that all the small animals the coyotes prey upon have been driven to higher ground so my surmise is this guy was hungry and in need of a meal.  He watched me for several seconds before he turned and at a leisurely trot headed through the meadow into the woods.

The east side of our property is bordered by a small creek.  About a half mile upstream the usually narrow creek runs under two bridges on a farm to market road.  This was the scene two days ago and it has been raining steadily since.  Can you see the three fence posts sticking out of the water in the center of the photograph in the largest break between the trees which are submerged in water?  I think this is what the coyote was escaping from when he wound up in my driveway not more than 20 feet from where I park my truck.

Glimpses of Spring

A trip to Nacogdoches last week signaled that spring is definitely on the horizon.  The pink magnolias were in full bloom.

The days are still gray and wet, even though the paper whites and the daffodils have bloomed.  Soon it will be time for the redbuds (which are really late this year), the dogwoods and the bluebonnets.  We just have to wait for them a little longer this year.  Hang in there!

Sts. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church of Shiner

One of the most significant contributions by Christian immigrants to the vitality of the church in North America has been the varied forms of church architecture they brought from their native countries.  The painted churches of Texas are a splendid example.  Their sanctuaries are adorned with a profusion of color and they are part of the valued and continuing legacy of the Czech and German immigrants, mainly Catholic but also Brethren and Lutheran, who settled the frontier towns of Texas from the Gulf Coast to the Hill Country of Central Texas.

This beauty is Sts. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church located in Shiner.  There are between 15 and 20 painted churches in the state, the majority of which are located in Fayette County between San Antonio and Houston.  Most are in tiny towns or small communities.

Once inside the churches you find nearly every surface covered with bright painting, exuberant murals, elaborate foliage trailing the walls and wooden columns polished like fine marble.  Inscriptions on the wall read not in English but in the mother tongue of those who built them, the Germans and Czechs.

When I stopped by the church in Shiner the lights were off in the sanctuary but my camera flash opened the sanctuary to a beautiful array of artistry.  One of my cousins and I are planning a trip to visit some of the other painted churches later this month, hopefully when the bluebonnets are in bloom.

Shiner is a sweet little town of 2,000 people 90 miles east of San Antonio, 125 miles west of Houston, 275 miles south of Dallas, and 40 miles northwest of Smiley.

Post Office Murals - 5 (Mineola, Texas)

During my research of the Texas Post Office Murals I was saddened to learn that the mural originally housed in the Mineola Post Office here in East Texas had been destroyed, so my quest for nearby murals continued on.  Even the Texas State Historical Commission had listed the mural as missing in one of its brochures.  Later while reading about various of the murals I ran across a mention on the Internet that the once lost mural had been found.  At some point it had been relegated to the basement of the old post office and in 1998 when a new post office building was constructed the old post office building was purchased by the City of Mineola to be used as the Mineola Historical Museum.  The mural, entitled "New and Old Methods of Transportation" by Bernard Zakheim was painted in 1938.  The citizens of Mineola were instrumental in having the mural restored by Zakheim's son and grandson and today it hangs again proudly in the building for which it was created.  Zakheim was paid $710 as a commission for the mural and the cost of its restoration was $49,000.

The mailbox room.

The post office as it stands today.

Mineola is a quiet little town in East Texas with a population of 4,500.   It is 80 miles east of Dallas, 220 miles north of Houston, and 670 miles northeast of the Mariscal Mine on the Mexican border in the Big Bend Country of West Texas. 

Everything But the Kitchen Sink

Near Weches, Texas

Hunt County Courthouse (Texas No. 44)

Although it is not one of Texas' historic courthouses, the Hunt County Courthouse in Greenville is certainly worthy of a blog post.  The light was just right, the sky was beautiful and all those courthouse hormones in me said why not!

Built in 1929, this courthouse is Hunt's seventh, the first being a simple log structure built in 1847 and subsequent structures suffering condemnation, fire or simply being torn down and rebuilt.  This one has lasted longer than any of the others.

The county seat of Hunt County is Greenville, which is on the eastern edge of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.  Hunt County's most famous citizen was Audie Murphy, the most decorated American soldier of World War II.

Greenville, population 25,000, is 50 miles northeast of Dallas, 285 miles north of Houston, and 399 miles southeast of Gasoline in the Texas Panhandle.

Antonio Gil Y'Barbo - The Founder of Nacogdoches

As I've mentioned before, Nacogdoches is blessed with many fine sculptures on public display.  This bronze of Gil Y'Barbo is in the downtown plaza and pays tribute to the founder of this oldest town in Texas.  Antonio Gil Y'Barbo was a prominent Spanish trader who emerged as the leader of a group of settlers to this area in 1779.  He was named Lt. Governor of the new town and established the rules and laws under which the city was governed.  He laid out streets with the intersecting El Camino Real and El Calle del Norte (both of which exist today) as his central point.  On the main thoroughfare he built a stone house for use in his trading business.  The house, or Old Stone Fort as it is called today, became a gateway from the United States to the vast Texas frontier.

The sculpture is located at the Nacogdoches Visitors Center on Main Street (the site of El Camino Real) about one block from North Street (El Calle del Norte).  Direct descendants of Y'Barbo still reside in this area.

NOTE:  I've been ill in addition to being inundated with work.  I hope to resume visiting my blogger friends very soon.