Tag Archives: San Antonio
FREE RANGE: FOOD, NATURE, PLACE, AND MORE
Mind the gap: ghosts, trees, and Goodbye to a River
There’s a 5,000-pound ghost hovering over Austin’s Lady Bird Lake, the remains of a 35-foot cedar elm painted white and hoisted onto a shaft sunk into the water. Entitled Thirst, this collaborative project memorializes the estimated 301 million trees in … Continue reading
Posted in More
Tagged bison, Charles Goodnight, Comanches, drought, ghosts, John Graves, Point Reyes National Seashore, San Antonio
5 Comments
Most memorable meals, take one: fire in the hole!
The other night, inspired by a typically wonderful dinner at Texas French Bread, my Best Gal and I got to talking about our favorite meals ever, and what made them so. Eventually, we decided that it might be interesting to … Continue reading
Posted in Food
Tagged Dai Due, memorable meals, Roadfood, San Antonio, Socorro NM, sweat, tamales
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Home with the armadillo: a love letter to Texas
Recently we and our three kids went to Martin’s native San Francisco to help celebrate his father’s eighty-fifth birthday. The five of us spent an afternoon walking along the cliffs of Point Reyes National Seashore, where the ground was springy, … Continue reading
Posted in Place
Tagged birds, Colorado, Point Reyes National Seashore, San Antonio, San Francisco, South Texas, Texas Hill Country, Thunder Heart Bison
2 Comments
“You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?”
Funny how things turn out sometimes. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, went to college in Massachusetts, and grew up (to the extent that I grew up at all) with fairly liberal political views. I … Continue reading
Posted in Place
Tagged Bay Area, boots, Dallas Cowboys, England, San Antonio, unreliable Italian cars, Williams College, Yankees
4 Comments
The White Queen on the edge of chaos
To our surprise, Martin and I are going to be part of the Summer Literary Festival put on by Gemini Ink, a San Antonio writers’ center dedicated to building community through literature and related arts. Rosemary Catacalos, the executive director, … Continue reading
Posted in Nature
Tagged Albert Einstein, biomimicry, Gemini Ink, Lewis Carroll, Paul Davies, San Antonio
7 Comments
Kerrville’s Singing Brakeman
Long before the first annual Kerrville Folk Festival in 1972, the city was for a short time the home of “the father of country music.” James Charles (Jimmie) Rodgers, nicknamed “the Singing Brakeman” for his background on the railroads, was … Continue reading
Posted in More
Tagged country music, Jimmie Rodgers, Kerrville Folk Festival, Kerrville TX, San Antonio, Texas Hill Country, Texas music, tuberculosis
2 Comments
A mother’s legacy
The first sparks for the idea of Madroño Ranch: A Center for Writing and the Environment were kindled about a year ago in conversations with my mother, Jessica Hobby Catto. She has listened carefully and thoughtfully to my sometimes wildly … Continue reading