The Arbor Hills Nature Center in Plano, Texas

I was driving about aimlessly when I stumbled on the Arbor Hills Nature Center in Plano. Plano is an affluent suburb of Dallas and the nature was very nice. There were lots of wide concrete paths and there were a lot of families there going for a walk

The city of Plano had done a great job of planting and restoring the black land prairie grasses and plants.

There were also quite a few places where they had planted native flowering plants that were quite beautiful.

The real treat for me was finding this beautiful fellow on the path. I believe it is a rat snake which is a harmless and as it's name implies it eats rats and other small animals. It is a very rare thing to see snakes or any other wild life in heavily used parks so I felt very fortunate. I also stayed long enough to be sure the snake made it off of the path without someone stepping on him.

an old farm house

I went for a walk in Grapevine today and I took a few pictures of an old turn of the century farm house. The house has lots of windows, a necessity in a hot climate.

This is a southern style house with the kitchen located in an ell at the back of the house. This house has large porches on both sides of the kitchen to keep it shaded and to provide a cool place to sit in hot weather.

The well for the house was originally hand dug here it has a brick well curb. It was late in the morning and porch on this side of the house is in the sun but the porch roof keeps the sun off the kitchen wall. The porch on the other side of the kitchen was in the shade. This is a house that was designed and built by the farmer who lived there and he did a fine job.

A tour of the Rahr Brewery in Fort Worth, Texas

I am always looking for something interesting to do on a weekend. I read about a local brewery that has tours on Saturday afternoons so I went. The actual tour of the brewery is free but if you want to try the beer you buy a glass for $5 and they will fill it 3 times with any of their beers. I didn't really need the glass but it is an interesting souvenir.






Beer brewing is a relatively simple process so a brewery is mostly just big stainless steel tanks.

Besides the beer which was very good, the best part of the tour was the people. The crowd was mostly young and friendly and everyone seemed to be having a good time. The tour was fun but it was really to hot to be doing much drinking. I am going to go again but next time it will be after the weather gets a little cooler.

A quiet Sunday in May

I was thinking about taking a drive or a walk today but decided instead to just hang out at home and clean up. The patio in back yard was really in need of a good cleaning and there is a lot of debris in the yard that needed to be gathered up. I am not a big fan of cleaning but I to enjoy having a clean house. There was a bunch of tree limbs and debris and I also trimmed up a couple of boxwood shrubs, I ended up with a truck load of trash that I took to the landfill. The landfill was unusually fragrant today and it was full of biting flies, it was not a pleasant trip. While sweeping up the patio I noticed how much dirt had accumulated; normally I just toss the dirt into the yard but today I thought it might be a good thing to put it to better use. Last January I had bought a pineapple which was excellent. The weather then was not good and I thought a little greenery might be nice so I planted the pineapple top. The top has been growing very nicely on my kitchen window sill and I have enjoyed it very much. Today I gave the pineapply a new home on the patio and used up the dirt that I swept up all at the same time. I hope the pineapple likes it's new home and now I need a nap. I hope everyone has a good week