Go For A Drive And Visit The Flock

In the old days you'd walk around the parish and visit people, now you climb into the rig and head out to the county. But I'm not complaining, it's good to drive around Hill County on a spring day, everything's green, the sun shines and all seems well with the world in its central Texan aspect.

Eureka

I passed through Eureka on the back route to Itasca, which was settled after the Civil War and was never very large; now it's smaller, being pretty much a cemetery and some grain bins. The cemetery's on ground owned by the same family since the 1870s, curiously. Then on through the rural Itascan dystopia.

Itasca

Saying that, Itasca does have Karen's and a great new Amish(?) deli, as well as the usual falling down warehouses and boarded up shops. But there's a number of towns here that aren't much more than an historical marker or cemetery; the people, businesses and industry moved on along with the use of the land itself. 

Blanton

Sometimes I'll stop to explore an abandoned house that's returning to nature and I did today, in what was once Blanton. It's eerie, looking at the abandonment, but don't get lost in the thought of the thing and step on a snake, that'd be an error.

 A Dwarf Surfboard?

Blanton prospered in the 1880s and '90s, boasting 150 residents, a school, two doctors, a mason,  blacksmith, shopkeepers, numerous churches, a cotton gin, gristmills and a cemetery. 

Sic Transit

Then the Texas and Brazos Valley Railway bypassed the town in the early 1900s and the place declined. There's little left now.

Fast

Still, it's a tranquil place to gaze out on the countryside from the tailgate with one of Karen's bean and brisket burritos but not today, no bean and brisket because of the Lenten fast. Well, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and after a short no burrito stopover in bucolic Blanton I drove to Whitney via 934/933, enjoying the countryside.

Only to end back at the County Seat and the Tractor Supply Company, where they're selling chicks. Scientists, who are experts, tell us that these are the descendants of mighty dinosaurs. 

Unfazed by this, people buy the fluffy little birds for backyard chicken operations, so there'll be no shortage of eggs here come the Eschaton.

God bless,

LSP

Texas Ghost House

There used to be more farms here, but many of these became uncompetitive and were bought out by larger operations. Sometimes the houses remain, derelict, being slowly reclaimed by nature; I looked at one today.

It wasn't large, a simple one story house, though it had two substantial stone chimneys, topped off with brick. I peered through the dirty windows, mindful of snakes, and saw that the furniture was still in place and the kitchen shelves still stocked. It was like a decaying time capsule that someone had left, expecting to return.

And not that long ago. The rusting Impala in front of the house was last registered in 2005, though an old plow had fallen into disuse long before that. It was becoming part of tree, which had grown up around it. 

There was a well, too, and you could see water flowing at its bottom. If the grid goes down I'll know where to go, if the ghosts don't mind company.

I left that place thinking about Detroit; chances are, the chimneys would have been in use.

There's a moral to this, if you care to draw it.

LSP