Mystery Rock

For all you amatuer geologists out there, here's a little assignment for you. What kind of rock is this? It's a curious orangish-brown color. I found it out in God's Garden scattered among the many broken fragments of chalky white limestone that make up the cliff on which we live.


It's very hard and perhaps twice as heavy as a limestone of similar size. It has this mysterious little hole on one side.


Near the hole a chunk of the rock has fallen away to reveal a black layer and what look to be slivers of wood or some other fibrous material (difficult to photograph without a microscopic lense).

Anybody know what this is or want to hazard a guess as to what the mystery rock might be?

Hint: It's not any kind of igneous rock.

Sunflowers in God's Garden

About half of our one-acre lot is vertical, which means there's no way we can have a lawn where the land starts dropping away ... wait for it ... precipitously (good pun, there). So, we call the top part of the cliff "God's Garden" because it grows whatever is going to come up. God planted cactus and an assortment of beautiful thorns that put out a gorgeous purple blossom. In spring bluebonnets and other widlflowers appear.


I remember all these from the days before we built the house. But what's new this summer are the sunflowers -- hundreds of them.


The cliff used to have a lot of scrub trees which we cut down. Maybe there wasn't enough sun for these huge flowers to grow. But they are all over our cliff and no one else along this shore appears to have any.


We had these stone stairs put in to help us access the upper cliff area. We have about 50 feet of God's Garden before the near 90 degree drop to the surface of the Lake. God also puts nasty little burrs in his garden that remind anyone who ventures into it just Who's boss.

Fireworks!

Wow -- what a fantastic night of fireworks here on the hill. The city of Granbury did a wonderful display, but nothing could compare to the view from our cliff-top as we watched literally a hundred or more fireworks displays from nearly every house along the river, up the canyons, and out on the rim of our valley. It was non-stop from just before sundown to long after midnight. It was as if every neighbor was trying to out-do the other.


Well, I don't need to tell you that a certain Corgi did NOT have a very nice evening. We kept Katie in the laundry room, turned on the washer and the dryer, and we even purchased a combination CD-radio which we turned up quite loud. In spite of all that sound insulation, she could still hear the booms and thumps as our neighbors lifted what had to be thousands of dollars worth of what I can only describe as near commercial quality rockets from boathouses along the lake and from the back yards everywhere, both to the east and west of our place.

Fourth of July

As twilight descended across the lake, we spied this flock of ducks, swimming in single file up the lake. I wonder if this is what it means to "have one's ducks in a row?"



This picture is taken just before all the fireworks erupted on the evening of July 4th. But look at the clouds. Do you see the eagle in the clouds just above the horizon? It's head and beak are turned to the side facing north and its two wings are outstretched. Ok -- it could also be Juan Valdez and his burro.

I'll leave the psychological analysis to Michael, but it made a beautiful backdrop for our first unforgettable Fourth of July in Granbury.

Next year, I'll try to get video.


We shared the Glorious Fourth with our dear friends, Dave and Sharla Martin. Dave went to high school with me in Warsaw, Indiana. We celebrated Dave's birthday by going to see a play at the Granbury Opera House on Saturday. The theater was built in 1886 and except for the air conditioning and electric lights is little changed from the days when the real Annie Oakley was performing for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. A troupe of college theater and music majors performed "Annie Get Your Gun" and it was delightful. The singers had exceptional voices and from that simple stage recreated the excitement and fun of the Broadway hit. I went not expecting a lot, but I came away really impressed with what our little town has accomplished.

Katie Hates This Holiday

This is Katie, our Corgi, and she absolutely hates things that go boom in the night. She goes totally beserk. Out here on the cliffs of Granbury, people are big on fireworks. They've been launching rockets and cherry bombs every night this week with increasing patriotic fervor, their salvos lasting longer and longer into the night. Last night the rocket's red glare didn't cease until about 11:00 pm. Well, when she hears the boom, pop, fizzle of fireworks, Katie acts like a Vietnam vet in a DaNanag flash-back.

If she's in her crate, she spins and tries to destroy anything she can get in her mouth. She cries and barks. So, I decided to let her out of her crate to see if we could calm her. She goes to the back door and I let her out. That low-slung hound starts running around the perimeter, chasing whatever ghosts haunt what's between her enormous ears -- around and around the yard, non-stop, barking like a banshee.

Across the lake the Winstons launch some boomers that cause Katie to stop dead in her tracks and look up to see the red and green explosion. It takes a second for her to unfreeze before she bolts for the back door wanting away from the onslaught. It would be funny if she weren't so panic-stricken.

I don't know if it's because Corgis have sensitive hearing or if she has some history from her days before we adopted her at the pet shelter. I can't imagine the chaos that will be let loose on us tonight when the city launches its pyrotechnic display just down river. Julie suggested we put her in the safe room because it's six inch concrete reinforced walls are pretty soundproof. We have guests coming tonight who aren't dog people. So, I can just imagine their reaction to Katie's
patriotic display.

Happy Fourth of July

Just what the world needs -- another blog! But we're so happy with the blogs created by our children to keep us informed about our grandchildren and all the things going on in their lives that Julie and I decided to try our hand at chronicling the mundane from our hilltop. By the way, if you haven't met the other bloggers in the clan, you can check them out at:
http://www.crazyforcaroline.blogspot.com/
http://schutzwrapup.blogspot.com/