Flood heartache

For those of you not familiar with our property in Wimberley, our community called River Mountain Ranch adjoins the now infamous Blanco River.  The Blanco was "disaster central" for the recent flooding and deaths caused mainly by rainfall many miles upstream of Wimberley.  Our community park is right on the Blanco, where we have spent many hours with friends and family wading, catching minnows, and skipping rocks.  And also just sitting back and admiring the majestic cypress trees along the banks, many of them hundreds of years old.  This bleak photo shows the Blanco five days after the flood from the remains of our community park.  All of the cypress trees are gone or stripped of their bark, soon to be completely dead.  And we as a community were the lucky ones.  It is called River Mountain Ranch precisely because it is a mountain mostly high above the Blanco, so none of our community homes were flooded. 

 

At our place lighting from the storm blew our main transformer, microwave, and water purification system, but everything else is fine.  The transformer has already been replaced; you can see the new one being lifted into place in the second photo.  And we are fine too, apart from our sorrow for those in Wimberley and around Texas who lost so much more.  

Our Blanco River will never be the same during our lifetimes.  It is hard to imagine ever being able to enjoy it without thinking back to the time just a short week ago, when it was so beautiful and without such tragedy attached to it.  Perhaps our grand kids will be able to stand on the riverbank with their grand kids one day, admiring medium-size cypress trees,  free from the knowledge of what has been lost.

Ceiling is Looking Up

The guest house main room ceiling is no longer a nasty bunch of exposed foam insulation.  I've been working the last couple of weekends cutting, sanding, staining, and installing birch plywood to civilize the space a bit.  And once I got panels installed past the ceiling electrical box, I mounted this ginormous 72" ceiling fan which hangs down to about the 8' high level. And as an added bonus, I'm happy to report that so far I am injury-free working at considerable height, thanks in large part to the massive super-ladder I bought just for the task.  So if you want to stay cool under the gently spinning wonder fan, or if you just need to borrow the world's best multi-position ladder, come on out.

Bird with Brains

It's the season for birds to usher the next generation into the world, and they can be pretty clever doing it.  I saw one flying repeatedly into the Y in this tree, first photo.  

When I got close to investigate I pointed the camera down into the Y and heard a hissing that sounded like a snake, which spooked me considerably.  Turns out it was the mother bird pictured in this 2nd photo trying to scare me away.  Critters in Wimberley have been amazing me for about 14 years now!