A River Flows Through It

 by Celia Hayes Click photos to enlarge

As the Riverwalk of San Antonio is such an ornament to the city and such a popular tourist attraction (only second after the Alamo) that one of the nicknames for our fair town is 'The River City' you'd think that any municipal organization possessing the necessary attribute – a permanent body of water deeper than a puddle in, or flowing through downtown – would have been been seen as a gift and an opportunity to do something like it. Maybe not cheek by cheek eateries and boutiques – but at least a pleasant string park, paralleling the river bank can this be created, for the benefit of the residents, the enriching of those retail establishments lucky to overlook it, and the sheer

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Now My Dream Texas Garden

 by Celia Hayes

In my last post I outlined what I would like to have as my dream Texas dream retirement home; a lot about the houses and some generalities about the landscape. I'd like a slightly rolling property, oriented towards the west, and studded with a handful of oak trees and a bit of a wildflower meadow at a slight distance. I didn't put in much about the garden around it ... just that there would be one. Being that I would like this dream home in the Hill Country someplace, I'd have to take care of the tender plants during those cold winter snaps when it gets down to or below freezing. Plants that scrape through a cold snap in San Antonio would not do as well during the winter in the Hills ... so I would have

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Gov. Perry Attends Grand Opening of Caterpillar Manufacturing Facility

TEF investment has helped create more than 200 jobs Thursday, August 23, 2012  •  Victoria, Texas  •  Press Release

Gov. Rick Perry toured Caterpillar Inc.'s new hydraulic excavator manufacturing plant, which has been expanded thanks to a $1.175 million investment from the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) in 2010. Caterpillar has already created 225 new jobs and will generate $200 million in capital investment with the new facility, and plans to continue hiring in Victoria.

"Caterpillar is no stranger to the way we do business here in Texas, and they've made it clear, through commitment after commitment, they like what they see," Gov. Perry said. "We happily return that

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The Way of the Okra

Although I have only one huge okra plant, and a couple of others which have produced intermittently and spasmodically, individual okes (is that the singular of okra, like meese should be the singular of moose?) my garden just doesn't seem to produced sufficient of them in a short period of time to make a decent batch of okra pickles on any given day. At least, not enough to be worth firing up the canning kettle. It's really not worth heating up the kitchen in my San Antonio home unless there are at least three quarts or six pints in contention ... and my okra plants just aren't that prolific. So I cheated – I went and bought two pounds of okra at the Indian market (cunningly disguised as a gas station on the corner of 410 and

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My Dream House

 by Celia Hayes

I have about decided what I should like to live in, as my Texas dream house. Alas, it is not the house that I currently live in, which is a comfortable, small and relatively undistinguished tract house in a pleasant neighborhood full of other homes filled with variations on the same generic theme of brick and siding and vaguely neo-classical trimmings. Lots of tall windows, fan-lights, and fireplaces; shoot a brick at supersonic speed across those parts of San Antonio built up in the last thirty years and you'd hit two or three or four dozen pretty much like it.

No, what I would like in the way of the retirement property is pretty much what my parents got for themselves, when all of us had flown the parental

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Gov. Perry: Sales Tax Holiday Gives Texas Families the Opportunity to Gear Up for the School Year

Thursday, August 16, 2012  •  Austin, Texas  •  Press Release'

Gov. Rick Perry encouraged Texas families to get started on their back-to-school shopping during the state's sales tax holiday this weekend, which exempts school supplies, clothing, shoes and backpacks priced at less than $100 from state and local sales taxes. This year's tax-free weekend runs from 12:01 a.m. on Friday, August 17, until midnight on Sunday, August 19.

"As summer turns to fall and Texas children get ready to head back into the classroom, the state's sales tax holiday provides a great opportunity for families to get the supplies they need to help their children succeed in

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SATXBlog Crossword Puzzle 10-"Waiting room distractions"

Print and Solve the Crossword Puzzle #10. We also have a daily interactive crosswords puzzle, too!

"Waiting room distractions" by Myles Mellor and Sally York

Across 1. Cores 6. Tacky chic 10. Enhances 14. Courtyards 15. Sea position 16. Hawaiian tuber 17. Mags 20. Increase, with "up" 21. Poetic palindrome 22. WWII battle site 23. Crackers 26. Mandela's org. 27. Stimulant ingredients 29. Kuwaiti, e.g. 31. Land of leprechauns 35. Profits 37. Indonesian roamer 39. Australian runner 40. Rags? 43. Addition 44. Affectation 45. Cow fuel 46. Some beans 48. Campaigns 50. Some bays 51. Family dog, for short 53. Psychoanalyzed? 55. Cooling-off periods? 59. Bit in a horse's mouth 60. Ripen 63. Mags 66. Algonquian Indian 67.

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Civil War Anniversary in Comfort August 10-11, 2012

 by Celia Hayes

I've written before about the Comfort Civil War monument – a stone obelisk under the oak trees at what would have been the edge of town in 1866. It is a monument to those Union Loyalists from Comfort and the surrounding communities, who were killed in a vicious firefight with Confederate partisans, or executed as captives afterwards, near a branch of the Nueces River a hundred and fifty years ago this year. There were nearly sixty of them – men from Comfort, Sisterdale, Fredericksburg, Cherry Spring and a dozen other little towns and hamlets scattered through the Hill Country. They were abolitionists and for the Union; they would not take a loyalty oath to the Confederacy, much

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