Holy cow! I just love to hear the cicadas’ whirring/clacking. Sounds of summer in Texas.

Here comes summer

Willie

Happy Birthday to this fine fellow.

Julie Davis (Austin, TX)

Study - Hill Country in Summer

John Graves’ Small Swift Birds

In recent decades it has become customary, and right, I guess, and easy enough with hindsight, to damn the ancestral frame of mind that ravaged the world so fully and so soon.

What I myself seem to damn mainly though, is just not having seen it. Without any virtuous hindsight I would likely have helped in the ravaging, as did even most of those who loved it best.

But God! To have viewed it entire, the soul and guts of what we had; and gone forever now, except in books and such poignant remnants as small swift birds that journey to and from the distant Argentine, and call at night in the sky.

Texas Harvest

It never seems like it in August, but there are upsides to gardening in a hot state.

Sun Gold cherry tomatoes

Hell Weed

Smilax (or bindweed or greenbrier, among many other names). It covers everything, and its roots reach down to hell. But, once a year for about a week, it puts out pretty purple flowers. So it’s got that going for it. Which is nice.

RIP, Duane Thomas, one of the greatest runners in Cowboys history. When an interviewer referred to the Superbowl as "the ultimate game," Thomas' never-to-be-forgotten response was, "If it's the ultimate, why are they playing it again next year?"

To no one's surprise, Willie Nelson wins Texas Monthly's "Celebrity Texans" bracket. And, in previous rounds, with very few exceptions, the Texan who should have advanced, did. A Final 4 of Willie, Nolan Ryan, Kelly Clarkson, and Matthew McConaughey is just about right.