Where Do You Find Good Help These Days? Feb-March in Windsor Park

 Where Do You Find Good Help These Days?

Especially at a reasonable cost! Well there is only one place left to look. Right in the mirror.

Everything and everybody cost more, considerably more. If you need some work done around the house or anywhere else it is best to have some DIY skills. You can always go to YouTube and learn some. Our house has needed lots of small to medium project work done and THANKS to my Grandfather for teaching me many of my DIY skills and showing the importance of  self reliance. Diving right into a fix it yourself moment was always the first goto since an early age. There was no YouTube in those days, trial and error was the teacher, even if you had to go buy the same part twice cause you messed the first attempt up it was always cheaper and you bought yourself a good lesson for future reference.

Our home needed a spring touch up coat of paint. 

Last year I used several tubes of caulk on the exterior getting things ready for painting. Now it was time to scrape and get it done.

Really impressed with the new paints, 

it is much thicker and one coat was plenty, in fact I only needed 1-3/4 gallons to do the whole job.

I did 1 wall a day and it took 7 days.

Just turn up the Jazz and the brush strokes come easy.

I even worked in some grilling while painting

While painting I noticed that the pipe insulation around the air conditioning refrigerant line was disintegrating, so I replaced that. You want everything about your AC to bed in perfect condition in TEXAS.

While cleaning the last wall for painting I had my head down within inches of the Gas Meter. I smelled gas. You could not smell it just by walking by the meter so I new it was a tiny leak. I called Texas Gas Company and they said Get out of the house now and stay 50 feet away, they immediately sent a service man over.

Virgil arrive within 20 minutes

Virgil sprayed some soapy water and found the leak in about 20 seconds, it was at the bottom of a union that connects the round regulator to the service pipe coming from the ground.

While taking the old union apart, it just broke off. The union and connecting fittings were first installed in 1958, Two years ago they came through the neighbor hood and replaced all the meters up to the old fittings. Who knows how long this thing was leaking? could have been two years!.

Virgil gave us a new regulator also.

He even painted the new fittings

Turns out Virgil lives in the same area where we first moved to the Austin Area out near Webberville. We knew some of the same folks out there. As soon as he told me his name I asked him where lived. I knew by the way he talked that he was from that area, He said "its a small World!:

Then the city showed up to remove a tree that was leaning on an electric line

We already had one of these volunteer trees fall over and this one was leaning over on the electric line, 

The Admiral called the city to report it and three weeks later this crew made short work of it.

See: https://youtu.be/tuqLCRj5fQ8

March is Garden Time

This year I have time to get it started right.

Learned this valuable Lesson back in the mid 70's from the farmer who was our neighbor Howard Davis in Webberville.

Bury a bale of hay and put 4-5 inches soil on top then a layer of cow manure compost.

plenty of space for 6 tomato plants

I us a Leaf Mulcher/shredder to build the walking paths and mulch the garden. Plenty of free bags of leaves in Austin! See: https://youtu.be/IsDj2MsuU5A

Guaranteed to grow the biggest,tastiest  

you have ever eaten!

Very luky to get a really nice rain the next day after getting the garden done.

 

Since then rains have been sparse and light.

Then we had a movie company make an Indy film across the street

This is Vinnie Hogan Shooting his indie movie "Aura"

Vinnie Hogan is a composer and producer, known for Electric Nostalgia (2016), The Fable of Shannon Cable (2013) and Shifter (2020).

We live just a few blocks from the Austin Film Commissions Film School of Film and Filming Studios so Windsor Park gets a lot of this type of filming just due to proximity.

They put up large signs on both ends of the street notifying those driving through that there were movie actors with guns. She stepped through the end of our garden for this shot.

The same week SNOWBALL was covered in snow.

WE got a dose,
 

It froze the rain gauge and cracked it. 

But by noon it was all gone but the cold.

As I continue to study and practice the blues I get came to learn tunes from the greats.

While I was painting a song came on Blues Fan Radio, it was Stanly Jordon playing Willow Weep for Me: https://youtu.be/AybVy2egROc I recognized the tune, it was one I was currently working on. Now I could put a name to the tune. A little research showed that many major Jazz and Blues musicians had their own version of the song out see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_Weep_for_Me

This was Clara's Idea I think.

Wow, we spotted this bee hive. Never seen one around here before.

Blue Bonnets in Full swing now.

February-March 2022 Rediscovering Austin

 Rediscovering Austin

Lake Travis

We decided that it was time to begin to emerge from the pandemic security of our little corner in Windsor Park. Lake Travis ( which is a dammed up portion of the Colorado River) is where we spent four years enjoying the Lake from the deck of Hey You, our 1986 Catalina 30. Mansfield Dam Park is just around the corner from Commanders Point Marina where Hey You was docked. We were familiar with the park since it within walking distance from the marina and we would sometimes take walks through the park and since it is adjacent to Mansfield dam we would walk across the dam. The dam is off limits now and the park now has a ranger booth and you have to pay to enter. It has a huge boat ramp that is very popular since it is the one closest to Austin and no matter how low the lake elevation goes you can almost always launch from there.

see: https://parks.traviscountytx.gov/parks/mansfield-dam

The lake is pretty low

But you can still launch your boat from here.

Replacing light bulbs on the dock.

Pray for rain.

That is the dam in the distance. many years ago it also served as the only two lane road to get to the lake. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansfield_Dam

This duck has most of the place to himself today

As long as we were in the neighborhood we drove over to Commanders Point Marina to check it out.

The entrance to Commanders point.

This pic I took from their web page, it shows the Marina when the lake is almost completely full.

These docks were brand new when we were here, everything is pretty weathered now.

The marina is down in a fjord and is protected on three sides from weather and wakes.

A friends Pearson, glad to see he is still here.

The next week we decided to return to Lake Travis and check out Windy Point otherwise known as Bob Wentz Park

see https://parks.traviscountytx.gov/parks/bob-wentz

The weather station at Windy Point.

This point of land always has the most wind on the lake. Sailors, wind surfers, and many other lake people pay attention to this weather station:

https://wwwext.arlut.utexas.edu/weather/lake/

Sometimes Islands appear as the lake levels decline.

The Admiral and I came here a couple of times to launch our 16' Hobie Cat. I reminded her about the time when the wind died so we beached the Cat and went up to a covered picnic table for a snack. I had left the Mainsail up but forgot to take the mainsheet out of the cam cleat. The wind came up and the Cat sailed away. I ran fast over rock and bush, dove in the water and swam as fast as I could to try and catch the boat. Fortunately a police boat was near by and spotted the sailorless vessel, they snagged it and brought the vessel toward the guy in the water who looked like he lost his boat.

Well this is a new idea of wind Surfing, the sail is inflated with air and not connected to a mast, They just hold the sail

All of this should be underwater.

The next week we chose Mt. Bonnell

see https://mountbonnell.com/

102 Steps

Almost always good for sunsets.

Lake Austin

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Austin

This property is so valuable because it does not flood.

This stretch of the Colorado River is known as Lake Austin, a constant level Lake.

So whatever water is released by Mansfield dam is likewise released by the Tom Miller Dam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Miller_Dam

The next week we went Downtown

Our son Graeme said "Hey y'all need to check out the new Waterloo Park downtown" 

+ it has the Moody Amphitheatre! 

https://www.moodyamphitheater.com/

Then we popped over to the Hike and Bike trail at Lady Bird Johnson Lake (also the Colorado River)

Wow saw our first Blue Bonnet for the Spring!

Well this guy means so much more to me now than ever since I have spent the last year studying and playing the blues. He is responsible for reviving the entire genera of Texas Blues and bringing the sound to the world. 

God Bless You Stevie Ray Vaughn

Like all Major cities I'm sure Lots of change and growth the last 10 years especially the last 5.

We just happened to go into a club down on 6th street back in the mid 70's when we had some friends visiting from Arlington, Tx. Doug Sahm and his crew were on stage, Our guest were blown away that we just happened to walk into a club and there they were! We were not surprised.

Well some things stay the same, like this squirrel & Lake Travis, and the Colorado River,

The next week we drove out to Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, But it's not where we expected it to be. It was originally out off of FM 979, out toward Webberville where we lived when we first moved to the Austin Area. It has since been moved and reimagined on 40 acres of 400 acres of University of Texas owned land in far Southwest Austin.

see https://www.wildflower.org/

Texas, a different kind of beauty, Do you like lizards, Armadillos and snakes?

The Good news is if you stay on the trail you won’t get lost.

Doesn't matter if you plant prickly pear on the top of the tower, it will grow mostly anywhere.

A great water collection system

There are springs around.

All the rain water goes in here.

Well we learned we could actually get out and run around freely outside. We chose Monday's since most people would not. We got to see what has changed, and the parts that did not. There is a lot more to see though but there are plenty of Mondays coming up.