Oliver Spain ca. 1959

Upper Right
George Oliver Spain, III
1951 ~ 2008
from the pages of
The 1959 Lair
(Rockdale Yearbook)
Oliver's findagrave memorial page

Confederate Jasmine

Rockdale, My Home Town

Texas
A World in Itself
by
George Sessions Perry
Copyright 1942

Rockdale Bottling Works

Rockdale Bottling Works
Rockdale, Texas

Ellis County Storms

Old City Cemetery & Red Oak Skies

Old City Cemetery, Rockdale, Milam County, Texas

Stormy Skies, Red Oak, Ellis County, Texas

Graves

Fletcher Cemetery

Mrs. Cardinal - finally!

Finally captured some okay images of Mrs. Cardinal . . . she flew away from her nest when I walked by on the way to the mailbox . . . figured she would be gone by the time I walked back in the house and got the camera . . . but there she was, in the dead althea bush . . . she did her usual evasive moves . . . I kept having to move around to try to get her in focus without a bunch of twigs and stuff in the way . . . that blurry effect is because of all those twigs . . . and it is very windy here today . . . and I was trying to manually focus directly on her . . . and had set the camera on the mode for capturing moving objects . . . FYI . . . clicking on the image will take you to an album with a few more shots of her . . .

Unhappy Chirper

This handsome guy was sitting right outside my bedroom window this afternoon . . . annoying Riley (the poodle) with his chirping . . . I know there's a nest there . . . and I keep thinking I'm hearing baby birds . . . but the nest is too high for me to be sure . . . anyway, he did not fly very far when I went out with my camera . . . he kept changing position in this dead althea bush . . . while I snapped 187 shots of him . . . I think you can tell by the attitude that he was not happy with me . . . and he did keep telling me about it . . . Mama Cardinal has not allowed any photos of her yet . . . and it's not for the lack of trying! . . .

Raindrops on Roses

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens;
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens;
Brown paper packages tied up with strings;
These are a few of my favorite things.

Storm Clouds

Possum Kingdom Wildfires

Photo of my TV screen

20 more homes burn at Possum Kingdom

I'm in the county barely showing at the bottom right

A Local Blog about the Fires

Vapour Trails

Contrails

Made in Germany

In Memory of Keith

Arlin Keith Pounders
13 April 1955 ~ 15 April 2011

I would rather sleep in the southern corner
of a little country churchyard
than in the tomb of the Capulets.

Edmund Burke
(1729-1797)

Bashful Blue Blossom

170 Years of Cemetery Records

More new books . . .
this is the county where I grew up . . .
and where the kith 'n kin have been since before 1850 . . .
published in 2001 . . .
by Norinne Holder Holman . . .

Riley's New Haircut

Relationship Chart

This chart hangs to the immediate right of my computer screen . . . handy to use for simple relationship calculations . . .

Cell Phone Wallpaper

This photo shows the wallpaper on my needs-to-be-replaced cell phone . . . I used my phone to take a picture of my computer screen . . . where I was displaying one of the collages I created in Picasa . . . lots easier than trying to get Riley to cooperate for a photo session . . . he absolutely will not look at the camera . . . I took almost 200 shots of him yesterday using sports mode on the Canon (i.e., continuous shooting while holding down the shutter button) . . . and only about 10 or so had him looking at me . . .

Time for a Haircut

Solar Powered Dragonfly

In Memory of Bennie

In memory of
~ Bennie Everhart ~
20 March 1948 ~ 07 April 2010

April Rose

This is this Spring's very first pink bud on the antique Fairy Rose (1932) in my yard . . . I planted it last April, shortly following the death of my husband . . . this bud is about the size of the fingernail on my little finger . . . these miniature roses are just the perfect size for drying for use in tearbottles . . .

State Bird of Texas

This mockingbird is sitting on the shepherds hook that sits right outside my front door . . . that dead vine is the remnants of last year's morning glories . . . the soft focus affect was another one of those accidents . . . I am in the house . . . shooting through the screen door . . . if you look real close, you can actually make out the mesh of the screen . . . had to do manual focus again . . . auto-focus, once again, could not figure out what to focus on . . .

Habitual Chirper

Not sure this is the same cardinal as yesterday . . . but he's in the same place . . . in the same tree . . . started chattering about 5:30 p.m. . . . this time I had camera in hand (with memory card installed) when I went to the door . . . he stayed around long enough for quite a few photos . . . but it was even windier today than yesterday . . . so I captured some interesting looking images . . . this was my favorite . . .

We had storms early this a.m. . . . with hail . . . and lots of lightening . . . I saw a ball of blue . . . connected to a lightening bolt . . . way on the other side of the pasture to the west . . . but after all of that, not even enough rain to wet the concrete driveway . . . we need rain! . . . (I know . . . be careful what you ask for!) . . .

Afternoon Caller

The critters in my neighborhood talk to me . . . Riley (the poodle) usually uses sign language . . . or just sits and stares and waits for me to read his mind . . . Jake and Mandy (the red-headed goats) yell at me when they think they have a chance of getting my attention . . . and a treat . . . and now the birds are joining in . . . I'm sitting here this afternoon trying to watch the NASCAR race . . . and I keep hearing a cardinal making all kinds of racket . . . so I open the front door to see what's going on . . . and there he sits . . . in the tree that is right outside my front door . . . and he actually continues to sit there . . . chirping away . . . long enough for me to go get the memory card out of the computer . . . and re-install it in the camera . . . and take several photos of him . . . before he finally flew away . . . we had a very windy day today . . . so several of the photos were blurred . . . and I had to set the focus to manual because the camera could not figure out what to focus on . . . did not have time to play with the aperture settings before he flew away . . . so this was definitely the best of them . . .

Morning Glory Leaf

Happy Birthday, Miss Ruby

A HISTORY
OF
LEE COUNTY
TEXAS
VOL. II

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
BY
LEE COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION
TO

MRS. RUBY NETTLES VANCE
LIFE LONG RESIDENT OF LEXINGTON
A MEMBER OF THE COMMISSION SINCE 1965

Her deep love for preserving history has been her motivation for many years to research and chronicle the histories of Lee County families and events and to share this knowledge through the pages of Lee County publications.

She was instrumental in gathering information for Volume I of the History of Lee County and she has been one of the driving forces in insisting that this continuation of the History be completed.

Researchers will be eternally thankful to Mrs. Vance and to her fellow historian, Mrs. Jan Conn, for their diligent work in compiling a record of every cemetery in Lee County -- listing the wording on many of the grave stones and the location of each grave in all of these cemeteries.

Thank you, Miss Ruby
01 April 1910 ~ 14 April 2003