As I pass my first real summer here in dry central Texas, it strikes me that the hot season here has lots of similarity to the cold season of my Michigan home. A few examples:

Hunkering Down:

In Michigan’s winter, one spends lots of time indoors avoiding temperatures that can literally kill you if you’re not careful.  My wife still shakes her head in disbelief when I tell her that classes at Michigan State were occasionally cancelled – not for snow – but for frostbite:  if it was possible to have your extrmities frost-bitten in the time allowed to walk the pathways between classes, school would wait for more conducive weather.

It’s the same here in Texas, only we stay inside our air-conditioned homes or cars or Wal-Marts to avoid the 100+ temps that can fry your brains in about the same amount of time.

Michigan Winter:  You avoid going outside after the sun sets, because you need the extra warmth.

Texas Summer:  You avoid going outside from about noon to five, because the sun is just too hot.

Michigan Winter:  Sometimes you long for a place out of the wind for just a couple of minutes.

Texas Summer:  Sometimes you long for a place in the shade for just a couple of minutes.

In the Car:

I can vividly remember the constant task of scraping the frost off of my car windsheild every time I needed to drive anywhere – sometimes the scraping took longer than the trip.  And the annoyance of frozen door handles, windshield wipers and gas lines often came into play, too.  Once the car started, we all shivered and shook from the chill until the car warmed up enough to blow some heat into the frigid interior.

Same here – except that the preparation is to throw open all the windows and doors to let out the 200 degree air, gingerly opening the red-hot door handles and trying to keep your hands from getting burned on the steering wheel.  If you’re unlucky, the heat may cause vapor-lock in the gas lines or the AC will make acceleration impossible.  If the car runs, one sweats and complains until the AC can blow enough cool air to make it possible to breath while you’re driving.

The hottest part of the summer reluctantly released us from its grip as October waned, and the record-breaking year of more than 60 100+ degree days and virtually no rain finally faded into cooler nights and mild, sunny days.  We even “had” to take some heavy coats and blankets to the homecoming football game, where the temperatures dropped into the high 40′s and the boys trounced their hapless rivals under the gaze of four pretty girls in tiaras.

Sadie has made a name for herself in her new-found pursuit, cross country running (that name being ‘the beast’ !?!).  As a freshman, she advanced to 2nd-man Varsity (2nd-person just doesn’t seem right), and even placed first for her school on two occasions.  She’s learning a lot about how her body responds to outside forces, and finished the year with a near personal-best time at the Regional Track Finals in San Antonio.  As is blessedly common at small schools, she wasn’t forced to choose between her sport and playing in the band, so fall was full of trips to football games, track meets, band competitions and multiple practices.  She’s having a great time.

Maddee’s cheer-leading career has had a good start.  The middle schoolers don’t have try-outs – its “y’all come” – so the team was huge:  it seemed there were almost as many girls on the sidelines as boys on the field.  Maddee enjoys the activity and the skills she’s building, as well as the friends she’s making.  I’m beginning to doubt my earlier feeling that this phase would pass quickly.  Of course, only time will tell.  And speaking of time, she spends a LOT of it on her new cell phone, but also keeps up some pretty good grades in a tough schedule of classes.

The long dry spell may have finally come to an end.  A couple of big storms and several good, soaking rains have gone a long way toward breaking the record drought, and the water restrictions have be removed.  Cypress Creek, the meandering trickle that flows along the Northern side of the Sansom property is running again.  The wet fall looked like spring for a while, with lots of green grass and wild flowers and even trees blooming and spreading out after their long nap.

Because this is my second time to see autumn in these new surroundings, some things are beginning to look familiar.  The greenish-browns of dry summer have given way to the reddish-browns of fall, which will fade into the grayish-browns of winter by January.  In a pattern that seems odd to me, the live-oak trees will hang onto their leaves all winter, but the pine-looking Cypress trees have gone copper-colored and will shed their needles very soon, putting on a new crop in the spring.  Because they are one of the few colorful trees in the landscape, and because they only grow near water, the cypress create a red stripe running for miles along the riverbanks when viewed from a high spot; you can literally trace the paths of the rivers and creeks as far as the eye can see for a couple of weeks in November.

The orchard of Keiffer Pears responded well to the pruning and other attention I gave it last fall, and, despite a brutally hot and dry season, managed to put on a moderately good crop of fruit.  The wet fall allowed the trees to hold fruit a full month longer than last year, when they dropped all of their wind-fall before Halloween.  I was in the orchard just yesterday, still collecting the large, extremely hard pears that will (according to local knowledge) improve with storage and last the winter with no need for refrigeration.  Hearty stock, planted by hearty people.

The fall also held one particular surprise.

The cows came back to Mary’s place after spending part of the summer elsewhere while fences were tended.  We enjoy having ‘the girls’ around the place, and probably spoil them a bit with hand-feeding and personal attention.  Because these three ladies are breeding stock – a small core of what the owner hopes to grow into a larger herd – we don’t have to worry about seeing them sent off to the slaughterhouse, which allows us a bit of plausible deniability about what really happens to cows.

The breeding, in fact, was about to begin.  The cows were coming into season, and a fine Angus bull – on loan from a friend to avoid rental fees – was on his way here for a couple of weeks of ‘work’.  He was to visit here, let nature take its course, and then go back on the stud tour no worse for wear.

Imagine the surprise all around, then, when, on an otherwise uneventful morning, Mary spotted a brand new, boldly white calf tottering around the back pasture next to one of our girls.

She looked like a miniature negative-image of her huge, all-black mother, and she quickly gained better command of her footing.  Soon she was gamboling about the pasture – never very far from momma, of course – and pausing only to head-butt her mother for milk.  She was promptly pronounced “CUUUUUTE” by all of our human girls, and named “Sundae”, because she looks like vanilla ice-cream with chocolate sauce.

Looking back, it appears that the ‘great escape’ I chronicled in an earlier blog entry must have included a visit to a herd of heritage Longhorns that lives up the road.  The calf, in addition to her coloring, displays a distinctly Longhorn body shape.  We’re suspicious that that big old bull must have had quite a day, because a second of the girls gives the appearance of possibly calving soon, too.  Who knew that cattle can have the kind of  ‘over the fence’ dalliances we try to keep our dogs and cats from enjoying?

This little miracle of nature is probably not good news for the cows’ owner.  He will miss an entire season – maybe even two – in his quest for a full-blood Angus herd.  I haven’t had a chance, yet, to talk with him about how he feels about this turn of events.  In the meanwhile, however, we are all enjoying a chance to see the wonder of natural procreation first hand.

So, my second fall season in the Hill Country holds some surprises amidst the seasonal patterns I am slowly learning.  I like both of those things, and look forward to discovering more of them.

While we certainly claim no high level of achievement, our experiment with raising Chickens has been fun and rewarding so far.  Here’s a little pictorial overview.

To re-cap: during her 6th grade year, especially when friends were showing animals at the local and state fairs, Maddee talked at length about how she’d like to join one of the agricultural student groups at school and raise an animal.  In my naivete, I believed her, but not so much that I ran right out and bought a calf .  We decided to start slow, and, since Oma’s farm had a ready-built chicken house, we decided on raising some chickens.

A baby Cornish White

I spent about two weeks and about $50 on renovating the coop – it was in great shape, but needed rebuilt inner and outer enclosures – and we were ready to add the birds.

When we brought them home from the Tractor Supply Company store, they were about 2 1/2 weeks old.  We had selected all hens (at least that’s what we tried to do – it turned out we were right) and got two varieties – versions of the

Baby Rhode Island Red

Rhode Island Red and the Cornish Rock White.

About 6 to 8 weeks

After spending their first few weeks in a cardboard box under a heat lamp, the girls were ready to venture out into the world – at least the world inside the fenced yard at Oma’s place.  They loved running around the yard, pecking and scratching, and got so strong that we had to clip their wings to keep them

The girls at six weeks old

Inspecting the Flock

inside the fence.  We didn’t dare allow them true ‘free range’ because of the local predators, not least of which were Oma’s dogs which, while normally very sweet animals, couldn’t really be trusted to ignore their instinctive drives when confronted with peeping prey.

For the next few months, then, we had “pullets;” according to our sources that’s the technical term for pre-pubescent hens unable, yet, to lay eggs.  Despite our best efforts, we lost three birds to predators – probably racoons, although we don’t rule out coyotes-  on the way to our adult flock.

Summer was long, hot and dry; not particularly good weather for any agricultural endeavor.  The pullets grew up and became  – well, handsome, in their own way – but not productive.  Their sixth month came and went, and they showed no sign of following the time-table listed in our manual for when egg production would begin.  Mary assured us that cooler weather would turn the tide.

And she was right.  September rolled in with its (relatively – very relatively) cooler temperatures, and soon we discovered our first small, white egg on the ground outside the coop.  It was well shaped, with a strong shell, so we knew that things were coming along well.

One day's hen-house harvest

Maddee and her friend

The birds are fully grown, now, with beautiful plumage and

And Sadie with hers

proud combs.  They are laying about 3 dozen eggs a week – they average one a day per bird!   The whites lay the eggs we all see at the grocery store, but the reds lay beautiful brown eggs (they still taste exactly the same to me).  We eat some, share some with family, and Maddee gets to sell some at school for pocket money.

A proud man - what can I say?

Of course, this activity became boring to Madeline within about two weeks of the chickens’ growing out of their ‘cute’ phase, so the family has taken to sharing the daily tending of the birds.  So it goes – the allure of cheerleading and friends at school was too much.  Still, I’m glad to have taken on this wonderful experiment in self sufficiency – I enjoy having those chickens around, with their cluck-cluck-clucking and bob-scratch-bob way of strutting around their little enclosure.  I’m hoping they’ll be with us for quite a few more years.

Here's looking at you, chick?

Attack of the Fifty Foot Chicken?

Other houses in Comfort were not as fortunate, including one lovingly renovated 1880′s home that appears to have been completely destroyed by a large Pecan tree that fell squarely on the roof.

We spent yesterday helping to clean up what we could, but some of the work is too dangerous for me to take on, so she’ll have to call in a tree service.

The good news is the three inches of rain that fell, though the creek still hasn’t started flowing again.

Twenty miles southwest, we in Boerne has less rain but also far less wind, so our house was unaffected. We’ll be going back to the farm today to see what else needs to be done.

Goodness! Be careful what you wish for!

We choose a tough year to live down here.  In addition to the national economic meltdown, the entire mid-Texas area is struggling through a record-setting drought – with rainfalls as low as 10% of normal at times and often weeks between the modest rainfalls – which has lasted nearly two years, now.  This summer has also been very hot, with more than 45 days in the past two months over 100 degrees – including every day for more than three weeks just passed.  It’s a little like Chinese water torture when day after day passes and no rain or cooler temperatures are anywhere in sight – but we remain optimistic.  As they say around here, every day brings us closer to the rain coming back.

Because of the lack of rain, Cypress Creek – the spring-fed waterway that runs along Mary’s property -  has stopped flowing for the first time in many, many years.  The deeper pools are now isolated by large humps of exposed creek-bed, and the fish and other wildlife have moved into those, hoping – as we do – for things to get wetter.  The deer are more and more visible, as they find their ways to man-made oases of greenery.  I scared up a herd of more than 20 – some bucks with new racks of antlers already sprouting – in Mary’s back pasture last week.  They were only temporarily displaced, and weren’t hurting anything anyway because the cows that had been boarding there have been sold to eliminate the bill for supplemental feed made necessary by the poor condition of the pastures.  Thankfully, Mary’s well remains wet, and no more severe hardships have befallen.

Despite the feeling that time has simply stopped in a dry, hot place on the calendar, we are still moving toward the start of a new school year.  Sarah has already finished track camp, and begins band camp next week.  Maddee will be starting cheerleading practice next week as well.  We are all looking forward to ending summer’s monotony, though some grumble about it a bit more than others.

And so the days follow apace – each pretty similar to the one before.  I have tuned several more pianos, and I’m beginning to think this might become a steady practice, though I continue to apply for jobs when I can and try to make consulting contacts every so often.  We’ve been doing a lot of work unpacking the house – many of our boxes seeing the first light of day since our move from Chattanooga.  (We have far too much stuff!)

I’ve been noting some odd parallels – actually opposites – between Michigan Winters and Texas Summers:

• In Michigan, you avoid cold weather by staying indoors or bundling up if you have to go out.  In Texas, you avoid the heat by staying indoors – unfortunately, once you’re naked there’s no more you can do clothing-wise to avoid the excess heat.
• In Michigan, you can’t drive your car until it warms up, and you have to be careful to scrape the frost off the windows – even if you just left the car a half hour ago.  In Texas, you can’t drive the car until the super-heated air is allowed to escape, and you have to be careful about touching things like the seat belts and the steering wheel before they’ve cooled down – even if you just left the car a half hour ago.
• In Michigan, we enjoy the mid-day hours when the sun can warm the air to a reasonable temperature.  In Texas, we enjoy the morning and late-night hours, when the sun stops heating the air to unreasonable temperatures.
• Avoiding frostbite and avoiding heatstroke require similar vigilance.
• Cabin fever is the same whether you are trapped by hot or cold – and only a break in the weather can help in either case.  Of course, you can always brave the elements, but extremes of either hot or cold can be deadly.

Ultimately, I have to say that things balance out.  When you add in the fact that I’ve never thrown out my back shoveling the sunshine off my driveway, I think the balance may shift southerly.

I really do try not to complain – even about the weather; I’m afraid it may sound as if I regret the choice we made to move here.  Not so.  Jane has thoroughly enjoyed the proximity to her family, and the girls seem to be thriving in the small-town culture.  And I have been grateful for the distinct lack of anything that could seriously be called a problem for the entire past year.  All in all, life is pretty good.

I’m not sure why my contributions to the Blog dropped off so precipitously – I’m sorry that this is the first posting in several weeks – but it just hasn’t seemed that anything was worth writing down.  If you’re reading this, drop a comment below to give me some encouragement.  Thanks, all.

Hello, friends!

Exactly one year – to the day – after Jane, Sarah and Madeline met the big moving truck hauling our Tennessee lives across the country to our temporary Comfort house, a much smaller truck picked up the last of the things we couldn’t move ourselves and carried them the 20 miles to our new, permanent home.

As of June 6th, the new info for Jeffrey, Jane Sarah and Madeline Brown is:

Address: 285 Katie Court, Boerne, TX, 78006.
Home Phone: 830-755-2361
E-Mail address: SansomBrown@GVTC.com.

All of us will maintain our individual e-mails, as well, but the cell phone numbers will be changing soon so that our local friends no longer have to dial long distance to reach us. I’ll update those when our contract changes in September.

The home in Boerne (pronounced “Bernie” – it’s taken from one of the families of German settlers who homsteaded the Hill Country in the 1850′s) is large and comfortable, and we’re working diligently to get everything out of boxes, many of which haven’t been opened since we left Chattanooga. As you can see in the attached picture, we live in a planned subdivision which is called Boerne Heights. It’s quiet, and the Home Owners Association is fairly unobtrusive. There are no homes over our back fence, so our view is better than most.

Sarah and Madeline did a great job of adapting to their new schools. Sarah made a bit of a name for herself on the track team, turning in the fastest time in the 200 meter dash among all of her teammates. She also plays flute in the band and has become quite a reader, though she’s been identified with a slight writing problem known as dysgraphia. So far it hasn’t slowed her down too much. Maddee will be on the cheerleading squad next year (heaven help us), and is spending this week in Chattanooga attending a sleep-over camp with a dear friend. She has really settled in well in school, and is being tested for ‘gifted and talented’ placement. Because Jane will continue to teach in the Comfort Schools, the girls have the option to stay there rather than transfer again to Boerne schools – and both have selected that route.

Jane got a teaching job two days before school started last August, which was a blessing for all of us. She spent the year in a 6th grade language arts classroom, and really grew to love it – especially the chance to leave school at 4:00 in the afternoon like regular folks. She has really enjoyed being near her mom, and back in her home town – many of her high-school friends still live and work here.

I haven’t found gainful employment yet – though I did spend a couple of months as a substitute biology teacher at Comfort High School. I’m working (rather half-heartedly, actually) on getting work as a non-profit management consultant, and I’ve taken up piano tuning for fun and profit. We’re keeping chickens on the farm, and I recently picked up a beautiful vintage record player – a Sears Silvertone manufactured circa 1920 – that I’m restoring (though it was in great condition to begin with – one owner!) I’m also appearing in the role of Edward Rutledge in a production of 1776 at Playhouse 2000 in Kerrville, which has been a good diversion. I’ve kept a blog – off and on – of my experiences this year which you can catch up on at www.jbctc.wordpress.com if you’re interested.

The Texas Hill Country is facing some challenges these days. We are entering our 23rd month of “significant” drought, with rainfall levels at less than half of normal averages for that entire period. The streams, creeks, and even the rivers are running at extremely low levels, and every area of life is now being affected – especially agriculture, but also lots of other things. Water usage is restricted all across the region, and it’s a new experience to have to think about water conservation every day. Otherwise, the unique beauty of the hills is on view every day as we travel the traditionally Texas-sized distances between all of the places we need to be, and we are all getting used to this new place.

If you’re getting this e-mail, it means that you have been a large enough part of our lives that we thought you might like an update on our progress. I hope I haven’t included anyone erroneously – but if so, just delete this note and no harm done. If you know someone who’d like to read along, feel free to forward – and you may want to let us know so that we can add them to our list.

Thanks, everyone for all of your love and support. We’ll try to keep in touch.

Jeffrey

I cannot say that I enjoyed the ‘thrill’ of teaching – I think I’ve written enough about that to be clear – but it hasn’t been all bad. As the year wound down, I found it easier and easier to be here and to interact with the students.

I never did get comfortable with all of the High School dynamics – the kind of stuff that Jane actually enjoys about teaching. Teenagers have so much to go through, and I can’t seem to develop any empathy for most of their issues.

Still, at the final faculty meeting of the year, I found myself almost wanting to join in the well-wishing for the completed year and the planning for next year. I think it had more to do with wanting to be a part of things than about wanting this particular thing – but I was surprised to feel some sense of loss at leaving.

I’m not sure what the Summer – or any of the future – holds. Maddee keeps asking “are we going to do ANYTHING this summer?” Apparently the answer “we’re moving into a new house and continuing to settle into our new lives” is not sufficient for her. It is for me. I’ll let you know how things go.

JB

• The prettiest flowers in the Hill Country seem to associated with the most noxious plants.  The flowers of the wild “Prickly Pear” cactus are a gorgeous yellow or orange – a wide, bright bloom that can be seen from quite a distance, which is good, because up close their tiny little thorns seem to jump at your hands and stay embedded in your skin for days.  The large, white bloom shooting up higher than its neighbors in the pasture is on top of the “Stinging Nettle” bush – one you’ll not tangle with twice, I can promise you.  There are plenty of other wild blooms, too, but not very many of Lady Bird’s famous blue bonnets.  I think it’s been too dry.

• I’ve only about 7 classroom days of teaching left, which is just fine with me.  The kids and I have pretty much reached an uneasy truce – I don’t make too many demands and they don’t make me feel too much like an unwelcome guest.  I’m not looking forward to facing the several students who will be receiving ‘zero’ on their end-of-term papers due to blatant plagiarism.  I think the little buggers thought I couldn’t use Google.

• I got the chance today to burn some of that mesquite tree in our smoker, spending more than six hours cooking pork spare ribs, a small beef brisket and a chicken.  Jane accused me of channeling her father’s tendency to fix far too much food – but as Buddy told me more than once, you don’t want to fire up the big smoker for anything less than a small mountain of meat.  The pork was delicious, but I don’t think I’ve got the brisket down yet – it was tough.  Maybe a few more hours of ‘low and slow’ were needed.

• I start rehearsals next week for a production of 1776 in which I’ll play South Carolina slave trader Andrew Rutledge (historically, the youngest member of the Continental Congress ?!).  I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.  I saw, today, an ad for a production of The Man of LaMancha that I wish I had known about for auditions – Don Quixote is one of my ‘someday’ roles, and you don’t see this one getting produced very much any more.

• Jane and the girls are about to pass their one-year marks here in Comfort – they moved last May and I stayed behind alone for a couple of months.  It’s been an eventful year filled with opportunities, though I sometimes have trouble seeing them.  My own “Year in Comfort” will be complete soon, and we’ll assess the future of the blog when the time comes.

Yes, I’ve been passing some milestones.  And, though that sounds vaguely painful, all of them have fallen by with little, if any real damage.  Thanks for following along.

JB

We have just begun the final “Six Weeks” – the last grading period of the year, and I at least know what the teacher’s syllabus calls for students to learn during that time. I’m not anywhere near being quick enough on my feet with this subject, so I’m having to do weekly, daily and even hourly plans for each of these six weeks to maintain any sense that I’m prepared. Fortunately, we are having school-wide testing this week, and I’m free most of every day to do those plans. The next five weeks will probably tell my tale as a teacher, because I don’t plan to do this again.

The dynamic here at Comfort High is pretty much what I remember about High School teaching. There is a WIDE variety among the students, and the traditional cliques are firmly in place. Around here, those include: The Jocks and The Nerds (of course), The Band-o’s are here, but not very visable – they are outnumbered by The Ropers (agricultural students) – and the biggest group of all are The Slackers.

The racial mix is about 50-50 Hispanic/White; if anything it leans toward Hispanic majority. There is a small number who are unfamiliar with English, but very few. There are no African-American students (though there is Anti-Black graffiti in the Boys’ Room) and no Asian population, either. Integration is pretty good, but self-segregation is evident at lunch and even in one of my classes, where the Anglo kids sit on one side and the Hispanic kids on the other (this seems to be more clique related than racial, however.)

Most of the kids are friendly enough, but very few actually desire any contact with a teacher, so I’m left alone most of the time. There is one student – a shy young man with average grades in my class – that I pass every morning on the way to my classroom. He’s always in the same spot, always alone (perhaps waiting for someone, I don’t know) and he ALWAYS sees me and drops his eyes as if to say “for goodness sake, don’t TALK to me!” I pushed through that for a few days – called out hello and got a weak wave – but I realized I was making him uncomfortable, so I now look straight ahead and pass him silently. It seems to be easier.

The staff has been welcoming, for the most part, but only in response to questions – nobody stops in to be sure I haven’t been tied to a chair or something.  And no one has taken a direct interest in ensuring that Mr. Sprott’s biology kids finish the year well other than to make sure someone (like me) was in the room with them every day. It’s unfortunate, because several of his students are taking a test for Advanced Placement college credit in early May, and they have lost their most knowlegable resource.

My days consist of finding things to keep kids busy – hopefully with something related to Biology – and then finding a way to give them a grade, to which they are programmed to respond. I had forgotten how little true curiosity is involved in this process – even in the bright students. A true teacher needs to be able to keep the shovel moving even when the chute is closed, and I have a hard time with that.

I may or may not have further feelings about all of this. Stay tuned just in case.

Our third dog, Jenna, left her food bowl full one day last week, which was very unusual for her. When it became two days without eating we went to the Vet, who did some blood work and could find nothing wrong. Two more days and she was still listless and would only eat from my hand – another trip to the Vet. He thought she may have a respiratory infection, and gave her some antibiotics and a vitamin shot. She really seemed to get a bit better – went back to the food – though she still seemed sad and slow-moving.

Sunday morning I woke up early and grabbed my coffee and newspaper, planning to sit in the back yard with the dogs because we all enjoy that very much.  Jenna was asleep on the back porch.  When I opened the back door she didn’t move. I touched her head, and she was still. She had simply ‘stopped’ during the night.

It took a while for me to comprehend the situation, and a little while longer to cry about it, which finally happened when I carried her to the truck so that her body would not surprise the girls (and I’m crying again as I write this.)  I waited for Jane to wake up so that she would know where I had gone before driving to the ranch to dig a small grave.

Only Jane and Madee went with me to the burial.  Sadie conceals her emotions better than the rest of us, but I don’t think she stayed behind out of lack of concern.   I think, rather, it was just more than she cared to share with all of us right then.

We placed Jenna under a young mesquite tree in a corner of the old orchard, mostly so that I’ll be able to remember where she is.  The mesquite will grow tall, but it will only last for about 15 years, and then her marker will be gone. That’s as it should be, I think.

My shock and sadness have given way to a more gentle feeling.  I’m glad she was with us for these five years – and I’m especially glad that those five years were better than they would have been had we not rescued her.  We won’t ‘replace’ her, but we will have another dog in our lives sometime soon, and I’ll be glad to have him or her, too.