This past week has really been fun. As I look around the apartment, I'm realizing how comfortable it is. I'm really glad that I brought pictures - my favorite pieces of original art. I even brought some of my pottery. I loaded some pictures on my digital picture frame, and it's cycling thru over 100 pictures at the moment. Our 40" flat screen is getting ready to show the Rangers baseball game. This apartment is such a contrast to one place we saw this past week.
I have a friend that I've known since 1975. Who says that writing personal notes on Christmas cards doesn't pay off. Helen and I have been corresponding via cards and now, email for the past 25 years! We haven't seen Helen and Frank for more than 20 years, but now we live just 60 miles from them. They live on a ranch, yes a real ranch, outside of New Braunfels in a house built in the early 1900's. They invited us for a visit, and their life is a complete contrast to what Drake and I are doing.
They have 110 acres, several outbuildings, and a gorgeously restored 1900 farm house - with additions which include three exquisitely decorated bedrooms with kingsize beds in each, as well as two major dining areas, 2 kitchens, and 2 living areas - not to mention the porch as well as the upstairs 'dormer' room for their teenage granddaughters which sleeps seven. It's a life they love and have lovingly built over several years - which involved living in a trailer on the property for several years until they could get the house restored! (The trailer is now a guest house.) They raise cattle, rent out their bulls to stud, raise goats (25 of them), chickens (organic eggs, anyone?), guinea hens, have 7 horses - 5 theirs, 2 they board, 6 dogs, 3 rabbits and 16 cats - 4 of which live inside the house with the 3 rabbits.
We offered to take them out for lunch not really understanding their daily commitments........but, when you have this many animals dependent on you day in and day out, it takes two feedings a day to keep everybody humming along. Frank and Helen feed, clean and tend animals EVERY DAY until noon. Then they break for the afternoon doing various projects - such as constructing a dog bathing house. Frank is plumbing it himself using stuff he has laying around - including one of the three claw foot tubs he picked up in the Heights neighborhood in Houston. (One of the tubs graces the 'yellow' bathroom in the farm house.)
One of the reasons they have so many animals is that Helen is really an animal rescuer. As Frank puts it - she can spot a dumped animal a half a mile away, and is not above sending him into the high grass along the side of the road chasing it. Not to mention, that she marched up to a house one day where she kept seeing a horse tethered for hours at a trough - and she came out the owner of the horse.
They entertained us royally with a wonderful steak, potato, salad, asparagus dinner which included sausage made by Frank's family using an generations old Czech recipe. We toured the ranch and caught up on old times, our children, and trying to figure out exactly when we saw one another last. We finally settled they came to New Orleans and saw us when Sarah was a toddler.
The really interesting thing is the contrast in our lifestyles. I've whitled myself down to the contents of a 5x10 trailer, and 900 square feet of living space. Helen has an fabulous house filled with her collections - which include a smattering of her 500 pieces of green glass, as well as her black ameythest glass, lots of appropriately massive furniture for the giant rooms. (She confided that after living in the trailer for years - her command to the contractor who helped remodel the house was 'make big rooms'.) She has at least two outdoor entertainment areas. I really loved the separate stone building which includes the remains of the fabric store she owned for years - think fabric, notions, buttons, patterns, paints. It's a crafter's delight, and set up to be totally functional as a project room. Helen is actually a very talented painter, and has a creative streak about 2 miles wide.
After marveling at all the work Frank and Helen routinely do, we decided to figure up our 'work' commitments. We arrived at 5 hours a week: laundry, grocery shopping, car washing, house cleaning, and miscellaneous errands - like going to the post office. This is exactly the life I want. I want to go places, eat at new restaurants, enjoy the scenery, and take in the local color. Our week has pretty much been a poster child for that life style.
During this week, we have visited the above described ranch, visited Austin twice - where we had dinner at a new restaurant - The Blue Dahlia, hiked in Bastrop State Park, discovered mini-cabins on the lake at Buescher Park, found the local Tex-Mex restaurant, attended the Yesterfest on Bastrop's Main Street, as well as ate the best hamburger/fries/chocolate shake in town. I got to visit the two major thrift shops in town and found Drake a bedside table (which we will take back when we leave) for $6.00 I also brought out the sewing machine and made a "drape" for my improvised entertainment center so I didn't have to look at the numbered tubs and trunk that composes it. It looks really good.
I also went to Bastrop First United Methodist Church which is celebrating its 175th anniversary this year. They have 3 services - 2 traditional and 1 contemporary. I chose the traditional this past week, and it was like being transported back in time to the church service of my childhood. I must confess that I enjoyed the old hymns, but missed the contemporary touches such as the contemporary music and the SCREEN. I also went to a Sunday School class in need of a teacher, and NO, I didn't volunteer to teach for the next 6 weeks. I'm also taking the last few weeks of the Psalms Bible Study on Sunday evenings. I do like the preacher - he's laid back and preaches a good, coherent sermon. And, YES, I embroidered thru the whole sermon.
Overall, it's been a great week. As much as I appreciate the beauty and tradition of Helen and Frank's lifestyle, I think my scaled down, transitory version suits me much better. It's working out even better than planned. Upcoming events are going to include a trip to Round Rock to a minor league baseball game, a stay on a lake in a mini-cabin (Buescher Park), showing Sarah the historic district of Bastrop - some amazing houses here, and a night at the 1889 Bastrop Opera House where we'll taking in Always Patsy Cline. There are two new restaurants in my sights for this week, and a revisit to a couple of others. Oh, and we are going to Shiner to take the brewery tour and an the way marvel over the new set of wildflowers which now include Indian Blanket, Wine Cups, and Black Eyed Susans. I'll also be looking for another festival to attend - they are thick on the ground in April and May in the Hill Country.
Finally, where are all those cards and letters you all owe me? I gave you my address, and so far only the Mary Martha Class has come through with a wonderful card signed my everyone in the class. Plus, Paula has been writing me delightful letters. I may be transitory and scaled down, but I do like to hear from my friends. Stay tuned......wait until you hear about Yesterfest.
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