Weather

Spring Break, Part I

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Debora

My blog hibernates during DFW winters. There’s not much here that inspires me to reach for my camera during the bleak gray months, although I did get a few nice shots this year at the place where I board Mahogany.

I’ve been less and less satisfied with the performance of my aging camera, so I finally picked up a new one earlier this month. The dreary winter landscapes didn’t offer much worth aiming it at until Elizabeth’s bff flew out from California to spend spring break with us. She arrived on a Saturday night and left a week later on a Saturday morning: a week of gorgeous spring weather bookended by chilly drizzles. I had Tuesday and Thursday off work that week, so we crammed all of the sightseeing we could manage into those two days.

Our Tuesday morning began at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. I’m still getting the hang of my new camera; my old one excelled at outdoor shots and struggled in indoor settings, while the new one seems to do just the opposite. I do love the way the new one captures the luminous quality of sunlight.

The weather couldn’t have been nicer. Mid-80s and sunny, with a light breeze that smelled like spring.

Love the giant Texas bluebonnet.

Of course the Japanese Garden was the highlight of the day.

Hopeful koi are hopeful.

After the Botanic Gardens, we headed downtown to the Water Gardens.

And from there we went to the Stockyards.

Don’t tease the mechanical horses!

Saunders Park is still my favorite little hidden gem of the area.

All in all, a fun day!

Next: Thursday in Arlington.

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, Birthdays, environment, Family, food, Friends, Horses, kids, Life, Love, trail rides, trees, Uncategorized, Weather, Wildlife, Winter | Tags: Fort Worth Botanic Gardens, Fort Worth Stockyards, Fort Worth Water Gardens | Leave a comment

Cake, Corn and Pumpkins

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Debora

My very favorite time of year begins with the start of fall and ends on New Year’s Day. Yesterday after I got off work, the kids and I celebrated the arrival of the Holiday season with cake and cider at Buon Giorno…

…and then headed up the road to Hall’s Pumpkin Farm.

We played in the corn maze…

…saw lots and lots of pumpkins…

…and generally had a nice time welcoming in the Season of Light.

I’m determined to find a way to enjoy the Holidays even though I’m back in retail, and I think this is the secret: little experiences tucked in wherever we can fit them, and celebrating on our own schedule rather than tying ourselves to traditional timelines. Let the magic commence!

Categories: Family, Holidays, kids, Life, Weather | Tags: Buon Giorno, Hall's Pumpkin Farm | 1 Comment

Evening Walk

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Debora

The weather is turning to fall, and the trails are beckoning.

When I was working at Cheddar’s, a coworker told me that I should check out the trails at Bob Eden Park. Thursday afternoon, the kids and I finally got a chance to do that. Turns out Bob Eden Park is just the first in a charming string of parks connected by trails that follow Little Bear Creek. We have explored bits of that creek before, but this section was new to us. Here is the part that we covered on Thursday:

The trails are sort of a continuation of the ones I wrote about in this post, in the sense that they follow the same line of power poles for a while. Really they’re more of a sequel, though, since there is no direct footpath connecting the two areas.

So, Bob Eden Park.

It has sand volleyball…

…a playground…

…and wide open spaces.

It connects to Little Bear Creek Community Park…

…which has tennis courts…

…a picnic pavilion and restroom facilities…

…and more wide open spaces.

At this point the trail forks. We chose the left fork, but we’ll probably go back and explore the right fork at some point. The trail we followed wandered along between the creek and a couple of different roads.

Eventually we came to McCormick Park.

It has a nice gazebo…

…a playground…

…and a handy directory of the trails.

Also, this snake painted on a log:

A little farther along we found another gazebo…

…another playground…

…and this sign, which was tall and hard to photograph.

It says, “The Preserve at McCormick Park,” referencing features such as a bird-watching area and a historic grove.

We continued on…

…but by the time we got to the lake the sun was setting…

…so we headed back.

This is a wonderful trail system connecting some really lovely park areas. We will definitely be back to explore the rest of it.

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, environment, Family, kids, Life, trees, Weather | Tags: Bob Eden Park, Little Bear Creek, McCormick Park | Leave a comment

Summertime Fun

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Debora

The rain eventually stopped, and the Texas summer arrived in all its sweltering glory. Luke flew off to California for his four-week visit with his dad. We had all learned our lesson last year about not moping around during these apart times, so Elizabeth and I kept ourselves entertained in his absence.

We discovered Founders’ Plaza, which is a really pleasant little park with a good view of DFW Airport and the adjacent UPS Hub. It’s a nice place to relax, watch planes land and listen to the piped-in live dialog from the airport’s radio control tower. We bring lunch or ice cream and make it a picnic.

Then Luke came back, and Elizabeth went to California. Other than going to see Inside Out, I don’t remember Luke and I doing a whole lot while she was gone. We did get our first sight of Texas fireflies, while we were walking in a park at dusk near a lake. I didn’t have my camera with me though, just my iPad, and that doesn’t take great pics in low light. I did manage to get one halfway decent shot – can you see the firefly?

I have been promising Luke for ages that I would take him to see the Dallas Heritage Village, so we finally made plans to go about a week after Elizabeth got back from California. Unfortunately, when we got there we found a locked gate and a sign saying that the Village was closed for maintenence and would reopen in September. Guess I should have taken a closer look at that website.

Anyway, there we were in Dallas, so we decided to check out the Botanical Gardens instead. That turned out to be a solid choice. The place is gorgeous, and during the month of August the ticket price is only a dollar per person, probably because it’s not the flashiest time of year and it’s like 150º outside. Some of the plants did seem to be struggling in the heat. But there is plently of shade, and lots of water.

There is a LOT of water. Streams and fountains and waterfalls everywhere.

This was my favorite:

There’s lots of statuary too, and most of it seems to involve nudity or sensual themes.

There’s just something about a garden that makes you want to run around naked, I guess.

After we left the Botanical Gardens, we investigated a little spot called Dragon Park that I’d seen mentioned on a website. It really is a tiny little place, but pretty and interesting.

And Monday we took Luke to see Founders’ Plaza for the first time.

And that’s about it for the summer fun. School starts back up in a couple of weeks. As for my job-related adventures…that’s probably a subject for its own post. Which I will write soon. Probably.

Categories: Animals, Artwork, Dragons, environment, Family, Horses, kids, Life, Love, trees, Weather | Tags: Dallas Botanical Garden, Dallas Heritage Village, Dragon Park, Founders' Plaza | Leave a comment

So. Much. Rain.

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Debora

May 2015 was the wettest month in recorded history for Texas, by a wide margin. DFW got an absurd amount of rain, 16.96 inches in May alone and 25.05 inches from March through May. It just rained and rained and rained.

So you can imagine my excitement when I got clear skies and sunshine for my day off work yesterday. The school year just ended on Friday, so the kids and I headed out to get stuff done and enjoy the glorious weather.

I had to pay up Mahogany’s board for June, so that was one of our stops.

The pasture looks great, and the wildflowers are still in bloom.

We decided to hike back to the Trinity River and see how full it was. Just getting to it turned out to be an adventure. A back pasture had become a lake, and we had to wade through one edge of it since it extended past the fence on both sides.

Then we crossed a nice stretch of high ground, and then we came to the woods and those were flooded too.

We slogged through that, and finally came to the bank of the Trinity.

Okay, just for context, here is an old pic of how the Trinity usually looks…

…and a pic I took yesterday from the same spot:

Here’s another old shot, same bank but facing the other way…

…and here’s one from that angle that I took yesterday:

The river was unrecognizable. As soon as we saw it, we immediately made plans to go tubing on it this summer.

On the way back, Elizabeth dropped her phone in the flooded woods and then spent like ten panicky minutes dredging around for it in the murky water.

I was waiting for her on dry ground, but when she couldn’t find her phone and refused to leave without it, I waded back in to help her look. Eventually we found it, long after I had given up any hope of it surviving the mishap. Miraculously, it took no apparent damage at all. She turned it back on the instant she found it, still dripping wet, and it started right up.

Luke’s phone got a little damp last week from being in his pocket while he walked home from school in the rain, and it flatlined and had to be replaced. Elizabeth’s phone spent somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes submerged in two feet of muddy floodwater and just shrugged it off. Technology is weird.

The sunshine felt really good, so our next stop was a nearby park. I wanted to see what the ponds looked like after all the rain.

This pond is brand new; it wasn’t there before:

The regular ponds had overflowed their banks.

This stand of trees usually marks the border between the two ponds, where there’s a sort of concrete bridge that I like to cross on Mahogany. Yesterday I couldn’t even see the bridge.

As of this writing, there’s no more rain in the forecast. I am ridiculously happy about that. I mean, we definitely needed the rain that we got, but enough is enough. Hooray for sunshine.

Categories: Animals, environment, Family, Horses, kids, Life, trees, Weather | Tags: Texas rainfall 2015 | Leave a comment