Around in Back Of the Alamo

The front of the Alamo is instantly recognizable; almost like a stage set. Everybody knows the bed-stead outline with what would have been a pair of towers on either side, a pair of shell-supported niches on either side of the door ... were there ever statues in those niches? I've always wondered about that. It was a mission church, when first built, then a chapel for the Mexican Army garrison, and at some point the roof over the nave and sanctuary collapsed in.

When the Alamo achieved fame everlasting, in the space of 14 days and a murderous hour and a half of pitched battle on a dark April morning, the church building had made into a bastion, filled with a platform and a ramp of packed earth and rubble to make a gun-platform for three cannon at the apse end. Later, it was repaired, and re-roofed, serving for decades as a US Army garrison and warehouse, as what was left of the mission compound was torn down, and the town of San Antonio de Bexar crept closer and closer to the old mission buildings. Eventually, the Army decamped to a new-built compound a little way north of town, and the old chapel became a shrine again.

What hardly show in the usual pictures are the trees and gardens on either side, and in the back, which served as a backdrop for the San Antonio Living History Association's "Fall at the Alamo" last weekend. My daughter thought there would be quite a few more re-enactors than there were - and as it turned out, I was much more interested in the re-enactors who had demonstrations and talks about early Texas than she was.

She was enchanted by the lace-making demonstration, by two ladies who were hand-making thread lace, weaving thread from dozens of slender ivory or wood bobbins, each bobbin trimmed with a bauble of beads. The lace pattern was mounted on either a pillow or a little round drum, studded with pins in a precise pattern, and the threads were woven around the pins and twisted with other threads - it was fascinating to watch. There was a spinner, with a basket of hanks of yarn, dyed with natural dyes, all in very muted shades, including a pink made from cochineal ... which according to another re-enactor, dressed as a Delaware Indian, was one of Texas's main exports, in the early days. He actually had a bottle of cochineal insects, little grey-whitish scale bugs that feed on cactus plants. When dried and pulverized, a red dye is extracted from these little insects, a red dye which takes superbly to wool. He had a table full of samples of commodities harvested or produced in Texas in the early days - by early, meaning Republic of Texas or earlier. Some of them I had already known about - like pecans. And leather goods, rice and salt.

I think very fondly of re-enactors when I am working up a book; there is no better way to get an idea of actually how something was accomplished, like starting a fire from flint and steel. Another re-enactor showed us how - not just with a chip of flint rock and what looked like a link from a steel chain, but also with the aid of a little scrap of carbonized cloth to catch the spark, and a wad of vegetable fiber - from, of all things, a mouses' nest - to feed that little spark and nurse it along. I would have never thought of that, so accustomed to using matches or a lighter in these days. I am sure that other San Antonio Living History events will be just as interesting, and spark any number of other insights - in me, and in anyone else.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

And patchouli, lemon-grass and key lime ... all of which grow in my San Antonoio back yard, or in pots hanging from trees along the side garden by the front door. Or all but the parsley, both pots of which has died back to the roots and beyond. I once had a volunteer parsley plant which came up in a sunny spot along the side of the house, and thrived for several years, on a thick stem the size of a parsnip. There is nothing like the taste of fresh herbs, and nothing like the convenience of being able to duck out of the kitchen and snip a couple of teaspoons of parsley, or rosemary, or pull a fresh bay leaf from the tree, or a handful of basil ... especially basil, which is peerless when fresh and green, but when dry tastes of nothing in particular.

Oh, we are fortunate gardeners in Texas, for having two growing seasons in the year, and not just the traditional northern hemisphere cycle of plant in spring as soon as winter ends, grow over the summer and harvest quick-before-winter-descents. In South Texas, it's more like a pair of short cycles, spring and fall, wedged in between a short winter, and a brutally hot summer. The recent rains kicked up new growth and a spurt of blooming in my garden, and got this fall growing season off with a bang; and just in time for the San Antonio Herb Market, which is put on every year, in mid-autumn. This year's Herb Market is set for Saturday, October 17 - not at Aggie Park, where it was always before, but now at the old Pearl Brewery, at 200 Grayson Street.

I've always loved the Herb Market primarily for the plants, because many of the vendors there were the first to sell exotic herbs; not just the usual stuff that you could find at any nursery, but the exotica - hanging pepper vines, lemon-grass and kefir limes, for example, and just about every kind of scented geranium around. Increasingly, there were more and more local and boutique vendors in recent years with stuff made from herbs: soaps and room scents, and perfume, teas and baked items and the like. All of this made the indoor venue dizzyingly aromatic, and the perfect place to pick up Christmas gifts, or even just a few items to pamper yourself with.

One of the sponsors of the Herb Market is the San Antonio Herb Society. A couple of years ago, I picked up a copy of their cookbook: one of our favorite cookie recipes is this simple one, for lemon verbena cookies.

See you at the Pearl Brewery, next weekend. I'll be the one buying more parsley plants.

Recipe for lemon verbena cookies

Cream together ½ cup butter and 2 Tablespoons confectioners' sugar.

Add ¼ teaspoon lemon extract

Stir in 1-2 Tablespoons finely chopped lemon verbena leaves and 1 cup sifted flour

Roll dough into small balls, and flatten with the bottom of a glass dipped in water, or your fingers. Bake for 10 minutes at 350.

Wimberley Market Day

Wimberley's open-air market, held on the first Saturday of every month, sprawls over lord-only-knows-how many acres of grounds, an organically grown tangle of paved walkways among a grove of trees on the outskirts of town. My daughter and I decided to venture up this last Saturday from our San Antonio home, in spite of rain which threatened for most of the morning, and saw us driving home, very slowly and carefully in the middle of a downpour. Up in Wimberley, though, everyone just broke out the umbrellas and the plastic slickers, and carried on - after all, it was the first Market Day in months where it wasn't boiling-hot, so cooler temps were welcome - and after all, everyone agreed that we did need rain. Maybe just not right at that very minute!

Vender booths run the gamut of all-but-open-air, roofed with a couple of tarps, or maybe some odd pieces of galvanized tin, all the way up to more or less permanent structures like large and ornate garden sheds, with level floors and even going to the extent of glass windows. Market Day in Wimberley started in 1964, when local vendors set up to do business off the tailgates of their trucks in the town square. The local Lions Club runs it now, with great efficiency - and Market Day still retains a lot of makeshift charm, as well as purveying anything under the sun ... and shade. Crafts, antiques, junk, food to eat on the spot and food to take home, art, garden ornaments and plants, children's toys and home decorating elements, just about anything you can imagine can be found along the winding paths of the Market Day's grounds.

Although, once you have spotted the perfect thing, it might be best to purchase it right away - first, because you might not be able to find your way back to it again, once you wander down a couple of twisty walkways and around the next corner, and secondly, even if you do - that vendor might or might not be there on the next Market Day. I was searching for a vendor that I remembered from previous visits, who would come with a grist-mill mounted on a trailer, with a little gas generator to run it, and sell fresh-milled cornmeal and wheat-flour. Cornbread made from that cornmeal was to die for - alas, the vendor hasn't been seen for months. There was also an artist, who made water-fountains, which appeared at first glance to be made of bouquets of flowers and greenery - tall plants like iris, mixed with cattail rushes and water-lilies, but were actually formed of thin sheet-metal, painted very realistically. Didn't find him, either, but found practically everything else, and Turquoise Magpie's Gemstones,  a booth selling beads and trinkets. Well, I needed to make some little beaded toggle so that I don't keep loosing my cellphone at the bottom of my purse....

The Road Goes Ever On and On

So it does in Texas, under a sky that also seems to go on ever and ever, infinitely blue, with clouds floating in it like puffs of cotton. The horizon is not masked by atmospheric pollution, or haze, or dust - it's as clear and as sharp as if there were a line drawn by a compass, or a pencil on the end of a string.

One of my characters in the Adelsverein Trilogy described this part of Texas: "...They call it the Llano Estacada. In Spanish it means ‘the Staked Plain' . . . an empty plain covered with short grass, mostly. It is not quite flat, but it looks as if it would go on to the ends of the world. There is also a sort of bush growing there, with leaves like the points of a spear. It sends up a single flower stem, taller than a man; that is what looks like stakes, for miles and miles.."

We did not see many yucca plants growing, as we followed the more or less straight arrow of roadway, to Menard, and Paint Rock, Ballinger and Winters, all those little towns set out about every thirty or forty miles, towns where the oldest buildings are from the late 19^th century, and huddle close around Route 83, which becomes Main Street for a couple of blocks. Then the last sheds and signposts fly by and we were out in the country again, with now and again a cultivated field, or a handful of black, or red, or fawn-colored cattle drifting lazily in a fenced pasture, among the scrub-mesquite and patches of cactus.

Luring the CAT to Central Texas

Local Government Tools that Made The Difference

• Local property tax abatement (Chapter 312, Texas Tax Code) - no city or county tax bill for 10 years.
• Value limitation and tax credits (Chapter 313, Texas Tax Code) - Eight-year limitation on the value assessed for school district maintenance and operation tax and two-year eligibility for tax credits. (No limitation on interest and sinking tax assessment.)
• Freeport exemption from personal property tax on parts and materials exported within 175 days of delivery to manufacturing facility.
  
• Economic development sales tax - Incentive funds allocated by 4A corporation.

Incentives for Caterpillar

Local

• City of Seguin -100 percent property tax abatement for 10 years.
• Guadalupe County -100 percent property tax abatement for 10 years
• Seguin ISD - Available $80 M value limitation per year on appraised property value for maintence and operations plus hold harmless funding from the state of Texas.
• Freeport exemption on personal property tax in Seguin, Guadalupe County, Seguin ISD.
• Seguin Economic Development Corp. - $2M incentive: $1M cash; $1M bond for sewer, road infrastructure.
• Regional partners offering incentives include: Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative, Center Point Energy and Springs Hill Water Supply Corp.

State

• Texas Enterprise Fund - $10M.
• Texas Department of Transportation - Deceleration lane, traffic signal - $450,000-$500,000 est.
  

A Caterpillar 725 articulated dump truck powered by a C-11 diesel engine that is among the type that will be built in Seguin.