Blog Archives

toilet training department

Apparently I happened to walk by the cleaning supplies (which included kids’ potty chairs) portion of the street-side market.

Palermo, Sicily
photographed 9.1.2022

hotel, via roma

A reasonably typical summer evening, only I was in Palermo instead of Texas.
(Evenings can last a long time: a cafe near our b+b stayed open until 4:00 am on the weekends. If you timed it right, you could grab dinner about 2:30 and then head out to photograph the dawn.)

Palermo, Sicily
photographed 8.31.2022

boot/cross

There’s about a quarter mile of fence that’s decorated (if that’s the word?) with boots and bicycles. It’s all wired there, so it seems permanent.

And other than that, all I know is that the Google street view, made in July 2024, does not include them, making them a relatively recent addition to roadside mysteries.

near Quitaque, Texas
photographed 12.29.2024

“…the quintessential cowboy”

I looked up Clifford Jackson Taylor after I made the photo but before I wrote this post, and here’s what I learned.

He went by Jackson and was a cowboy, working on ranches across the United States and in Australia. He was a member of the Western Ranch Cowboys Association and was professional bronc rider; he appeared in two seasons of the reality show “Ultimate Cowboy Showdown.” In 2023, he was competing in the WRCA-sanctioned Estancia Valley Ranch Rodeo in Moriarty, New Mexico, fell during a bronc ride and later died, according to a report from the Floyd County Hesperian-Beacon. He was 33 years old.

His grave is here, in a tiny country cemetery that’s down a dirt road.

Grey Mule Cemetery
Hall County, Texas

photographed 12.29.2024

spring, a few months away

The wind blew the next day, steady and strong, to scatter these seeds to ensure new plants come spring.

Caprock Canyons State Park, Texas
photographed 12.29.2024