January 17th-still hanging around Fredericksburg Texas

Cooler weather than we would like but when the sun shines it’s lovely.  Trees lose their leaves here too, ( Not just up north,)but many are all dressed up with mistletoe balls!    This is a typical bridge on a rural road—so you can plainly see why it would flood in a big rain storm—there’s only about 6” from the road to the water level, and not many guard rails!!  Don’t want any swerves when driving over the river!-or you might be in it!   Visited Lindyn Johnson’s state park where we volunteered for 3 seasons. It’s a living history farm, to show  life as it was in 1915, when LBJ was a boy.  The old log building was built in 1869 by a German family, the Sauers.  They arrived with 4 children, and when they left there were 12 kids!  So he added on stone structures to the log home, but first he would have built the ‘tank house’.  Water from the windmill, flows into the tank on top, then down into the stone building below.  Pretty ingenious!  The farm was sold to the Beckmann’s in 1900, and they made lots of money from cotton crops,-the price of  cotton was high during the war- so they were able to build the Victorian house in 1915.  Inside the kitchen I spent most of my time  in front of the cook stove- loving every minute.  On the table is show and tell of what happens to the milk when there is no refrigeration, going from fresh, to clabbered (or yogurt as we know it), then curds, which after cooking slightly, is made into cottage cheese, dried cheese, and finally a hard cheese.  They can grow gardens here all year long—still carrots, broccoli, cabbage, onions.   It was great to be able  to run out to the garden for produce for dinner.  Dinner was served at noon, supper, the evening meal, and lunch was sonething you took to school  or the field. Lots of good memories here-I could write a book!!