Five Thousand Miles for a Camel

In the annals of the US Army, are recorded many strange and eccentric schemes, but none quite equals the notion of a Camel Corps for sheer daft logic. It was the sort of idea which a clever young officer would come up with, upon considering vast tracts of the southwest which the United States had acquired in the 1840s.  The country was desert - what better animal to use than one which had already been used for thousands of years in deserts elsewhere?

As a matter of recorded history it was 2^nd Lt. George Crossman who first raised the matter seriously. One senses that this notion had people falling about laughing, and then slapping themselves on the forehead with a strange gleam in their eyes and exclaiming, "By George, it's a crazy idea... but it just might work!"

Other forward-thinking military men kicked the idea around; it had the backing of a senator from Mississippi, who sat on the Senate Committee on Military Affairs. But Jefferson Davis was not in a position to make it happen until he became Secretary of War in 1852. Congress appropriated $30,000 for the purpose, and a designated ship set sail for the Mediterranean. Thirty-three camels were purchased in Egypt, and the officer assigned to the project, Major Henry Wayne also hired five camel drovers to care for them.

The camels arrived at the port of Indianola, numbering thirty-four, since one was a pregnant female. This was a promising beginning to the project, which would be headquartered at Camp Verde. At a stopover in Victoria, the camels were clipped and a local woman spun yarn and knitted a pair of socks for the President of the US out of the clippings. Once established, the camels transported supplies and astounded skeptics by easily carrying four times what a single mule would bear.  They were used for an expedition to the Big Bend, and late in 1857, Edward F. Beale took 25 camels and two drivers on a long scout to explore the southwest along the 35^th parallel. The camels performed heroically and were used for a time to transport supplies from Fort Tejon.

The project might have come to something but for the Civil War. As draft animals, camels were even less cooperative than mules. They spat, stank to high heaven, scared the living daylights out of horses and mules, and did not endear themselves to Army muleteers.  The California herd was sold to small enterprises and circus, or allowed to wander away. Those camels and their descendents who escaped into the desert were spotted fleetingly for decades afterwards.  The Texas herd was also sold off or left to wander. One of Major Wayne's drovers,  Hi Jolly eventually took a small herd of  camels sold as surplus after the Civil War to the Arizona territory and used them to haul water for a time, before turning them loose. Another drover eventually ended his days as a general handyman in the town of Comfort, Texas. So passed the end of an experiment, although there are scattered markers and monuments all through the Southwest, and a group of re-enactors, dedicated to reliving the improbable glory days of the US Army Camel Corps.

San Antonio Missions State Park Chosen for Next Texas State Quarter

September 09, 2009

AUSTIN - The U.S. Mint has announced that San Antonio Missions State Park has been chosen to represent Texas in the next series of state themed quarters. The façade of Mission Espada has been recommended to represent the park on the quarters.

"With Texas' rich and diverse cultural fabric, it's difficult to choose just one image to represent the span of history in the Lone Star State," Gov. Perry said. "I'm proud that San Antonio Missions State Park has been chosen to represent our state in this national program, and I look forward to seeing these new coins in circulation."

As part of the America's Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008, the mint will issue coins featuring national parks and other national sites on the reverse of the quarters every 10 weeks beginning in 2010. Selected sites will represent each of 56 host jurisdictions comprising the 50 states, District of Columbia and each of the five U.S. territories. A portrait of George Washington will remain on the front of all quarters.

The act directs the secretary of the treasury consult with the secretary of the interior and governor or chief executive of each host jurisdiction to select the national park or national site to be honored for each jurisdiction. The U.S. Mint will design, mint and issue the new quarters in the order in which each site was first established as a national site. The site selection and design processes are similar to those used to create the 50 State Quarters series.

For more information on the America's Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Act of 2008, please visit http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/NSQuartersProgram/index.cfm?flash=yes.

Key Points

• U.S. Mint announces San Antonio Missions State Park chosen to represent Texas on next state themed quarter series
• Facade of Mission Espada has been recommended to represent the park
• The new quarter series will go into distribution in 2010

Comptroller’s Economic Outlook

Updated September 4, 2009

The Texas economy, the world's 11th-largest, continues to fare better than those of many other states. But Texas is feeling the effects of the worldwide recession.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the U.S. economy peaked in December 2007 and has been in recession since then. Although the Texas economy slowed with the nation's late in 2008, Texas' gross product expanded almost twice as fast as the U.S. economy (2.0 percent versus 1.1 percent) during calendar 2008.

Both the U.S. and Texas economies have contracted in 2009, but Texas continues to perform relatively better than the nation. The Comptroller's office estimates that the Texas' gross state product will contract by 1.7 percent during calendar 2009. The U.S. economy will shrink even more, by 2.8 percent for the year.

Jobs

• Texas gained 37,900 jobs in July 2009, for its first month-to-month job increase since October 2008.
• Texas' July 2009 unemployment rate is 7.9 percent, up from 7.5 percent in June. The August U.S. rate is 9.7 percent, up from 9.4 percent in June.
• The Texas unemployment rate has been at or below the national rate for 31 consecutive months.
• The U.S. lost 5.8 million jobs from August 2008 to August 2009.
• In the 12 months ending in July 2009, Texas lost 222,000 jobs. The year-to-year peak in jobs lost was 246,000 from June 2008 to June 2009.

Housing

• Thus far, Texas has weathered the national real estate crunch without significant damage to property values but sales and construction activity have slowed. Despite its continuing resiliency, Texas is not immune from the national real estate crunch.
• 6,915 building permits for single-family homes were issued in July 2009, reflecting a 5.9 percent drop from July 2008. The number of permits in the 12 months ending in July 2009 was 60,293, a decrease of 33 percent from the period one year earlier.
• Multi-family building permits are also down, from 4,712 units in July 2008 to 554 units (the lowest monthly total this decade) in July 2009. The number of permits issued in the 12 months ending in July 2009 was 28,464, a decrease of 49 percent from the period one year earlier.
• Sales of existing single-family homes in Texas have been declining since late 2006.  While those sales were down by 5 percent from July 2008 to July 2009, that was the smallest annual decline since mid-2007.
• In Texas, the median price for existing single-family homes rose by 0.6 percent from July 2008 to July 2009.
• The Texas foreclosure rate has remained largely stable for the last three years. Texas experienced 12,077 foreclosure filings in July 2009.
• In July 2009, the Texas foreclosure rate was one in every 781 mortgages. This was substantially better than Nevada's one in 56, California's one in 123 and Florida's one in 154.

Oil and Natural Gas

• The all-time high crude oil closing price was $145.29 on July 3, 2008.
• Crude oil futures closed at $67.96 per barrel on September 3, 2009, 38 percent below the level of one year ago but double this past winter's lowest price of $33.98 in February.
• In fiscal 2008, production tax collections for natural gas were up 42 percent over fiscal 2007. Tax collections for oil were up 72 percent.
• Natural gas production tax collections for fiscal 2009 were down 48 percent over fiscal 2008; oil tax collections were 39 percent lower.

Taxes

• Texas sales tax receipts for August 2009 were down 12.5 percent fromAugust 2008.
• For fiscal 2009, state sales tax receipts are down 2.7 percent from fiscal 2008
• Texas Motor vehicle sales tax collections for this month through Aug.5 are at $37.161 million, down 15.2 percent for the same time last year.
• Mean average transaction prices for new cars declined by 7.2 percent from July 2008 to June 2009, to $23,695.
• Nationally, auto leasing accounted for 21 percent of auto sales in July 2009, down from 24 percent in July 2008.
• Congress has authorized an additional $2 billion for the "Cash for Clunkers" rebate to extend the program through Labor Day, which should fund an additional 500,000 new auto sales on top of the 250,000 already completed.

Stimulus Package

• In Texas, an estimated $18 billion in federal stimulus money is flowing to state and local governments. The Comptroller's office is tracking the $14.3 billion that comes through the state Treasury. The Comptroller's analysis is ongoing. For the latest information, visit our ARRA Web site, A Texas Eye on the Dollars.

Consumer Confidence Index

• Consumer confidence across the nation remains very weak. In July 2009, the U.S. index stood at 46.6 (with 1985 = 100). Texas and surrounding states fared better than the rest of the nation. Texas' regional index fell to 73.3, down 8 percent for the year.
  

Link to Texas Comptrollers Website

Juan Seguin - A Relatively Unsung Hero

Juan Nepomuceno Seguin was a man whose good and bad fortune it was to be on the border between Anglo Texians and Mexican Tejanos. He was born in 1806, in San Antonio. He came of a prominent local family; his father was a signatory to Mexico's 1824 constitution. Juan Seguin was himself elected to the office of alcalde - a cross between mayor and justice of the peace. Altogether, he was a promising young man in local politics, when Texas was merely a far-distant province of Mexico - and gradually becoming disaffected by the dictatorial actions of the Centralist President of Mexico, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

When Santa Anna soon dissolved the Mexican Congress, moderates such as Seguin were thrown into opposition, right alongside their Anglo neighbors. Stephen Austin granted a captain's commission to Seguin, who raised a company of scouts. When elements of the Mexican Army under General Martin Cos were thrown out of San Antonio at the end of 1835, Captain Seguin's company assisted with the throwing. His men then became part of the small garrison of a tumbledown old mission known as the Alamo. Some historians have even speculated that Seguin might have been its commander - but that he personally was too valuable as a scout. He was sent out of the doomed Alamo as a courier. At Gonzales, when Sam Houston began gathering his ragged Army of Texans, Seguin raised another small company of Tejanos, who served as scouts and as rear-guard, as Houston fell back into East Texas.

When Houston finally turned to fight, he wanted to leave Seguin's company out of his line of battle, guarding the camp and the baggage train, fearing that in the thick of it all, Seguin's men might be in danger from their own side. After the massacre at the Alamo and the Goliad, many in Houston's army were not inclined to make distinctions between Mexicans. Seguin angrily refused, insisting on a place for his company in the line: he also had lost some of his men in the Alamo. His men could not return to their homes until Santa Anna was defeated; they had just as much or more cause to hate him as any Anglo-Texian. It was their right to take a part in the fight. Houston relented, asking only that Seguin's men place pieces of cardboard in their hatbands, to distinguish them.

Stephen Hardin's history of the Texas Revolution, "A Texian Illiad," features careful sketches of many soldier-participants, including one of Seguin's volunteers. His clothes and equipment are of the borderlands: American shoes, short Mexican trousers, a fringed buckskin jacket, a rolled serape and a Brown Bess musket, a gourd canteen and a wide-brimmed vaquero's hat with a rosary around the crown and a slip of cardboard with "Requerda el Alamo" scrawled on it.

More about Seguin is in the Handbook of Texas Online. He served as a legislator, civic official and soldier on both sides of the border, and eventually died at the advanced age of 90, in Nueva Laredo. He appears very briefly in the 2004 move "The Alamo", as a friend of General Sam Houston, as played by Spanish actor and filmmaker Jordi Molla.

His monument in Texas is the town of Seguin, a little south of San Antonio, where he was buried.

Gov. Perry: States Should Have the Right to Create Health Care Solutions

September 02, 2009

LUBBOCK - Gov. Rick Perry today underscored his concerns about the impact on Texas of health care proposals under consideration by the federal government, and emphasized the need to pursue state-based solutions to health care reform. The governor spoke at a discussion hosted by the Lubbock Area Association of Health Underwriters.

"Cutting into a state's ability to apply local fixes to local problems stifles the sort of innovative solutions that states are best suited to develop," Gov. Perry said. "These one-size-fits-all health care proposals will cost taxpayers billions of dollars without significantly improving access to or treatment in our health care system."

Texas continues to seek state-based health care reform options. In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in July, the governor reiterated his request for a federal Medicaid waiver that would help transform health care in Texas from a heavy reliance on hospital-based care to increased access to primary and preventive care. The plan is centered on state-specific solutions to eliminate costly federal mandates, and use those resources to provide more low-income Texans with insurance, reduce expensive emergency room visits for basic care, and make it easier for the working poor to buy into employer-sponsored insurance. This reform waiver was originally sent to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in April 2008.

Current federal proposals include significant Medicaid expansions at the state level, individual and employer mandates to purchase and offer qualifying insurance plans, and federal takeover of some current state insurance functions such as rates and coverage exclusions.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission has estimated that the House and Senate versions of the federal healthcare legislation could add $30 billion to $60 billion to the state budget, and would more double the number of Medicaid recipients in Texas.

Sic Transit Scriveners

On a September day a few years ago, I drove the 410 loop for the first time in a good few weeks, and saw that there was a bulldozer busily scraping away on the site of one of north-east San Antonio's best loved retail landmarks. What was physically left of Scriveners' made heartbreakingly small piles, but then it was never all that large a building to begin with, or distinguished, architecturally speaking. It was one of those places which just grew, organically, incoherently sprouting departments to no particular plan. The gourmet chocolates abutted the garden supplies and the kitchenware, and ran straight into the hardware department. Describing Scriveners' as a department store is kind of like describing Star Trek as an old TV show; technically accurate, but not even beginning to do justice to the reality.

Scrivener's started as a hardware store, just after World War II: a local GI returning from the service teamed up with two of his buddies, and set shop when the location was the other end of nowhere, adjacent to nothing but the airport, the intersection of 410 and Broadway being respectively, a two-lane roadway and an unpaved lane. The manager of  my own local hardware establishment pointed out that independent hardware and department stores in small towns have a tendency- if they pay attention to what their customers ask for-to stock all sorts of oddments, because there is really no other place to buy them. The original founder adhered to the same philosophy; he bought out his partners and listened to the suggestions of his sales staff.

First, they branched out to patio furniture, and tiki torches and barbeques, and paper plates and picnic things in the early 1950ies; all those necessary accoutrements of post-war baby-boomer suburbia. Suggestions to stock this, that or the other inevitably resulted in another addition to an already rambling structure -   I don't think there was a consistent ceiling or floor level throughout the place - and another department. Eventually, they sold collectibles, stationary, gourmet foods, embroidered baby and children's clothes, and installed a wonderful fabric and notions department, chock-full of imported laces and silk ribbon.

/They retailed kitchenware, fine china and crystal, collectables, designer accessories, jewelry and handbags, Christmas ornaments, wind-chimes, bird-feeders, and ornamental brass fireplace accessories, and featured a tea-room that served dainty lunch dishes straight out of the 1950ies. Every menu item came with a little cup of consommé, and for the first course, the waitress came around with a tray of fresh-baked sticky buns, which were legendary in San Antonio homes, baked by a little elderly lady who came up on the bus from the South Side for years, to bake them specially.

For decades haute San Antonio registered at Scriveners', bought their wedding-dress fabrics there, bought baby-clothes and barbeques. All of this, and still there was the hardware store; the gentle joke being that women could drop off their husbands in the hardware section, and shop for hours, undisturbed.

I came there mostly for the fabrics- lovely, quality stuff that I could barely afford, but the sales staff in the fabric and notions section knew me quite well as a discriminating customer, if not as rich as some of the other regulars, and one of the very few with the skill to tackle  the very difficult Vintage Vogue, and Vogue Designer patterns. There were just not many other places in San Antonio -  or probably anywhere else, where you could walk out with a spool of thread, an envelope of black cut-glass buttons from Czechoslovakia, a cookie press, a bag of bird-seed and a three-way light-fixture fitting.

Their eccentric and old-fashioned charm carried it into the 21st century as Broadway outside-the-loop was paved, and 410 became a ring-road, circling the metropolis, but their store hours, as admirable as they were for the employees probably cost them in the long run. They closed evenings at 5:30, and did not open on Sundays. These days, even clientele of up-scale retail establishments have Monday-to Friday jobs. When the original owner retired, the whole place was bought by Berings, of Houston, pretty much the same kind of retail business. They promised that nothing much would change, save the name which appeared on chic new green awnings. But they closed the fabric section, and remodeled the inside to accommodate more china and upscale housewares. I was distraught over that, but still patronized the hardware store, and the kitchenware department, until the spring of 2005, when suddenly, the inventory was marked down, and the notices went up. Everything was cleared out in short order, by generations of customers in deep mourning. A manager told me sorrowfully, they could not find a building large enough in Alamo Heights, since real-estate at the corner of 410 and Broadway was just too valuable in the present market.

The building sat empty for a couple of months, the brave new green awnings unfaded, but eventually the bulldozers came and went, and so did the construction crews: there is a Chili's and a Wachovia bank branch on the site now. I don't thing I will ever patronize either, for all unknowing, they desecrated one of my very favorite shrines, the place where San Antonio's most eccentric retail establishment once stood.

~TEXAS VETERANS LAND BOARD FORFEITED LAND SALE~

 *October 2009*

 On Tuesday, October 27, 2009, the Texas Veterans Land Board (VLB) will once again offer forfeited land tracts to eligible Texas veterans in a sealed-bid sale.

What's New:

• All winning bids will be originated as a mortgage loan with a Note and Deed of Trust.  Winning bidders must meet VLB credit requirements if obtaining VLB financing.
• Closing costs and a down payment of not less than 5% of the minimum bid listed will be required at closing.  The VLB can only finance 95% of the minimum bid listed up to $80,000.00. In addition, any amount you bid over the minimum listed must be paid at closing, if you are obtaining VLB financing.

Please note:

• ALL BIDS must be received by 4:30 p.m. on Monday, October 26, 2009 (the day before the sale).  No walk-in bids will be accepted on the day of the sale.
• There is a limit on the number of bids you may submit.  You may bid on a total of six tracts in the Forfeited Land Sale and you must list your choice preferences on each bid.
• The sale will be available for viewing via webcast.  Live viewing is not guaranteed, as we have a limited number of connections.  The webcast will be archived and available on our Web site approximately 24 hours after the sale.

For complete information and instructions, see Forfeited Land Tracts or call toll free:  1-800-252-VETS (8387).

Family and Home Tidings

"Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The window to the world can be covered by a newspaper." -- Stanislaw Lec

"A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not." -- Henry Fielding

"Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock."-- Ben Hecht

How good is your TV knowledge? (Answers below)

On what TV show could you see the Skipper and his "little buddy"?

Who said this? "Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Denise Ianello is a pretty but sometimes far-out legal secretary on which TV show?

In what cartoon did Soundwave keep two buzzards, Laserbreak and Buzzsaw, in his chest?

On what TV show could you see Gopher, Doc and Isaac?

(Answers: Gilligan's Island, The Incredible Hulk, Civil Wars, Transformers, The Love Boat)

Directions
Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook six to eight minutes on both sides or until golden brown.
Add the mushrooms, wine, thyme and tarragon to the skillet. Cover and lower heat.
Gently simmer for about eight to10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and no pink remains in the center.
Sprinkle with the chopped parsley before serving.

Thanks for reading! If you'd like to tell us what you think about this newsletter, or if you're thinking of buying or selling real estate, please get in touch.

Small Town Texas

by Mamie Carter

Not so long ago, first-class postage cost three cents and a loaf of bread was a nickel.  When you pulled your car up to a "filling station," the owner came out with a squeegee in his hand. "Howdy there, stranger."  Beneath the red-roofed station stood glass-topped gasoline pumps and a familiar Texaco sign with a red star. ("You can trust your car to the man who wears the star.")

Scenes from the by-gone days of "Small Town Texas" are captured by Dr. Ricardo Romo, President of the University of Texas at San Antonio. They are on display through Oct. 4 at the Witte Museum at 3801 Broadway. The exhibit is free with regular museum admission. The show is part of Foto Septiembre USA, an international photography festival.

The filling station photo, which is the most memorable of the group, records two signs, Waring General Store, on the front coupled with Welcome to Waring. A red, hand-lettered sign out front reads STEAKNITE.

Romo, a historian, and his wife, Dr. Harriett Romo, a sociologist, drove through more than 75 towns during the past year to photograph the remnants of a fading way of life. He says they drove from Abilene to San Antonio, "speeding through all these little towns, feeling a little guilty about not stopping to appreciate what these towns are about. We need to stop in these little towns and find out what's going on."

"The towns seemed to be something out of the 1950s," he continued. "If we don't capture this now, it won't be here in five to 10 years." Patriotism is a strong aspect of small Texas life. In Baird (pop. 1623) Romo photographed a waving American flag attached to an empty bench. Another photo shows a row of windmills.

Reaction from people viewing the exhibit involves nostalgic memories. One man said of one of the photos, "I saw something in it. I just wanted to step in there and be there." A woman viewing ranchland confirmed to her husband, "That's Charlotte. I know. I've been there." Romo said, "Some of the vestiges of small-town life have already disappeared. For instance, a rancher saw a photo of a farm implement and asked, 'What is that?' "  The tool had long been abandoned in a field and replaced by more modern equipment.

Another man saw a photo of a new flea market near Devine and remarked, "Boy, I got to go over there."

In Cuero a railroad car was converted into an office, which interested Romo because of the transition of something old into something new. One Sunday when the Romos stopped their car in front of an old building, they attracted the attention of a patroling policeman. He looked at the couple suspiciously until the photographer held up his camera. The policeman nodded and drove off as if to say, "Oh, a tourist."

Romo, who grew up on San Antonio's west side, said as a youngster he traveled all over south central Texas visiting family. "I can't do (photograph) all of Texas because I've got a full-time job," Romo said. "But there's more with the same theme. Other places." And someday soon, a book of his small-town photographs will be published.

The Small Town Texas photo exhibit is on display at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, TX from Aug 22 - Oct 4, 2009. The exhibit is free with Museum Admission. The museum is located at 3801 Broadway; San Antonio, TX 78209. Phone: 210-357-1900.

Adventures in the Texas Hill Country

The Hill Country, that tract of rolling, lightly wooded hills north of San Antonio has always been South Texas' Lake District, our Berkshires, our Mackinac Island, or Yosemite; a cool, green refuge in the summer, a well-watered orchard oasis in the dusty barrens of the Southwest.. Rivers run through it--- the Guadalupe, the Pedernales--- and it is dotted with edibly charming small towns, like Wimberley, Johnson City, Kerrville, Comfort and Fredericksburg. Visitors like my mother often say it reminds them of rural Pennsylvania, a resemblance strengthened by the coincidence that large tracts of the Hill Country were settled in the mid 19th century by German immigrants, who built sturdy, two-storey houses out of native limestone blocks, houses adorned with deep windows and generous porches and galleries. Myself, I think it's more like Provence, that lovely, scenic and hilly bit of southern France, from which comes all sorts of good things to eat.

There have always been artists, and eccentrics, and hobby farmers - and while the Hill Country may not superficially look all that much like Provence,  the underlying geographic bones are similar, the climate is (at a squint) similar and the very same kind of things Provence is famous for (at least in popular imagination) are emerging from the Hill Country, even if we still have to catch up on the art. Alas, Vincent Van Gogh was a one-off.  But artisans, wine-makers, brewers and perfumers are catch up, everywhere else. All within an hours drive of San Antonio.

Starting with wine - and some very good wine at that, for all of that, at the Fredericksburg Winery. Even their labels are works of art - literally, and they are right on Main Street. More good Texas wine?  Try the Becker Vineyards, whose annual "Grape Stomp is coming up this weekend and next. Seriously, Texas wine is getting better and better all the time, and besides, it can be a heck of a lot of fun - prove it to yourself this weekend at the Grape Stomp, and even dress up like Lucy and the Italian women to stomp grapes. Seriously, how can you go wrong for an event whose motto is "Stomp me, crush me, make me wine?" But if you don't want to drive a long way, check out your local HEB grocery. Most of them will have a section for the local output - you don't necessarily have to go all the way to Fredericksburg.

More Provence food goodies? What about goat cheese, made from the real milk of real goats?   Try the Pure Luck Farm and Dairy, in Dripping Springs, the home of real, farmstead cheese. Well, all those hobby farmers, trying to find a useful outlet for what started as a herd of pets had to come up with something to do with all the milk. The Pure Luck Farm is not offering any more tours this year, but the cheese can be savored everywhere.

Olive oil, the gift of the Goddess Athena to the Greeks in ancient time, the staff of life and good cooking, all around Southern Europe and the Mediterranean? Got that at the Bella Vista Ranch - although they seem to have Tuscany in mind, not Provence.  It may take a bit, the odd couple of hundred years or so, but our descendents will have the benefits of acres of nicely gnarled, bearing olive trees - scenic and health-wise.

Lavender and perfume? Got it. Becker Vineyards also does lavender, but personally I love the scent of a perfume called St. Fiacre, made by The Fredericksburg Herb Farm;  it's in my perfume wardrobe, right next to the Chanel Number 5. They have a vast garden, plants for sale, a shop full of ornaments and goodies, a spa and even a little restaurant, and now they are getting ready to offer Bed and Breakfast accommodations.

If you don't care for wine, and all that and much prefer beer, don't pass up on the Fredericksburg Brewing Company - likewise on Main Street, which also offers all the good food to go with the beer. Including the desserts, which are perfectly splendid, but very rich; best split them between two diners, or get them to take away.

And finally, in the spring, in April and May the hillside pastures and highway verges are splashed with great vibrant sweeps of color--- red and gold Mexican Hat, pink primroses, and the deep, unearthly indigo of bluebonnets, acre after acre of them. Wildflower meadows are an ongoing enthusiasm in Texas, more notable here than any other Western state I have ever traveled in. A visit to Wildseed Farms may start you off on building your own wildflower meadow next spring - after all we are coming up on planting time.

Now, if we could only get Red McCombs, and a couple of other local millionaires to build some fortified villages and artistically ruinous castles on some strategic hilltops - the Texas Hill Country might really have a chance at being "The New Provence"