Places

A trip out to the lavender farm is a big part of Blanco’s annual Lavender Festival. This year’s featured farm, Hill Country Lavender, is celebrating its fourteenth year of operation with a new location at the intersection of FM 165 and FM 2325. The young plants on the new farm have reached their first year of maturity; the lovely lavender flowers enjoyed by many for their beauty and valued for their many uses as well, have begun blooming. “There is a second field nearby and we act ...

Armfuls of orange marigolds, yellow clasping coneflowers, pink yarrow and pastel delphiniums fill plastic buckets in the open-air packing shed at Arnosky Family Farms, located on FM 2325 east of Blanco. On towel-covered tables, Pamela Arnosky and an assistant work on an overcast June afternoon, hand bunching long stems together to create colorful Texas Garden Bouquets.

Staying at the Lazy J’s Ranch Guest Cottages is like taking a trip back in time, but with all the modern conveniences you’d like. This quiet, expansive retreat is located 11 miles southeast of Goldthwaite and you have to travel a few miles on a dirt road to get there so you know it’s definitely off the beaten path. The two cottages are on a 50-acre ranch named for owners Jeannie Rollo and John Sumner, former Austinites who have had the ranch since 2007. The name of ranch may be La ...

Goldthwaite is a tiny town on the northern edge of the Texas Hill Country. It has a population of 1,878 and yet everyone has fun here. Why? Well, what other city do you know of that has an albino hedgehog greeting visitors in its library? That’s right. His name is Quillbur. Susan Lindsey, the Jenny Trent Dew Library director, explains that her granddaughter Molly Kachal made a hedgehog out of folded paper and Molly’s friend Susan Garner saw it, said she had a real one, and then do ...

My Nonnie handing me peach, fresh and warm from the tree. The tall tales of the heat of my Papa’s peppers. The sun, hot on my back, as I rummaged among the vines for cucumbers in my Grandma’s garden. Shucking the sweet corn my Pawpaw raised, hidden amongst the field corn.

The fifteenth Annual Lavender Festival began at noon Friday June 7th. The Old Blanco Courthouse lawn was filled with vendors under the protective cover of white tents. People of all ages could find something to suit their tastes. Lavender products, hats, jewelry, wind chimes, clothing, arts, crafts and food vendors.

The Central Texas peach crop is abundant this year despite enduring early and late freezes, heavy rain and recent strong storms. According to the Hill Country Fruit Council, the 2019 peach crop is very strong. Several stands have the white-fleshed peach in now. Varieties are a week or two earlier than normal, as the first Freestone, Harvester, began ripening the first week of June. According to experts, most of the Hill Country fruit is ripening, and it’s a bumper crop, according to are ...

There are 254 counties in the State of Texas, in each of those counties a town serves as the county seat. And at the center of them all, stands a courthouse, erected to serve the people of those communities. Texas has more historic courthouses than any other state; there are approximately 234 still standing that are at least 50 years old. Law dictates that counties must build a “convenient building for hold courts”, which included space for courtrooms, office buildings and other rooms s ...

Over 100 years later, the benevolence and principles of a poor Scottish-American immigrant are continued at the historic Carnegie Library of Ballinger. After humble beginnings, Andrew Carnegie established a steel industry in the northeastern U.S. and became the wealthiest man in the world. He believed strongly in the merit system and a society where it was possible for any hard-worker to become successful.

Is there anything as renewing as a fresh start? For the Texas wine industry every vintage provides the chance to start over, to embark on a new adventure so to speak. As winter comes to an end and spring begins, the vines wake up from dormancy and begin their journey to bring us beautiful Texas wines.