scribblings from historic downtown McKinney, Texas: altered art, local color, flora, fauna, cemeteries, irrational commentary, improbable-and-unlikely diy home projects
Green Clearwing Dragonfly
I’m fascinated by bugs, especially when I can view one close up. I don’t know why I grew up disliking them, or why I was terrified of spiders. (I still despise cockroaches, though.) Is it a Western cultural thing to see insects and reptiles as evil things? It seems most of the aliens […]
Squirrel with pecan. I’ve heard people saying it’s going to be a cold winter in North Texas, but really, Senor Squirrel, is that any excuse to stuff your face this way? And Dude, your oral hygiene sucks. Brush those teeth once in a while. Eeeeew!
yeah, I know it’s a boring picture. We spent the last two weeks of exile in a local motel. Our window looked out onto a Jeep dealership and we spent a lot of time watching cars coming in and out of a service bay, and employees taking smoke breaks next to it. This was accompanied […]
I returned to this almost-abandoned cemetery over the weekend. The thick foliage from last summer had been mowed down, probably with a good-sized tractor. The corner of the lovely metal fence had been opened and was bent down; someone didn’t care enough to put it together again. The plants that were mown have dried to […]
“Tragedy is no stranger to the family of Preston Gleason, 21, of Anna.
Preston died Tuesday in an accident in McKinney at the intersection of Alma Drive and State Highway 121. McKinney Police Department officials said a tractor-trailer ran a red light and collided with Preston’s motorcycle.”
(from The Dallas Morning News - Aug 16, 2007)
I like […]
The acorns have ceased their relentless attacks. They’ve been raining down on us every time we go out the back door as the oak trees’ mounted their last protest against the changing weather. Even Phoebe was ducking her head every time something whoosed past. Now the trees are dropping their leaves as autumn rushes toward […]
It was a beautiful day yesterday, but I have so many chores around the house I had to take a day off from cemeteries. So here’s a shot from Warden Cemetery, my current transcription project. I often see these metal funeral home markers stuck in the ground next to a gravestone, which is nice, because […]
You see them on a long lonely stretch of highway, or near an exit ramp of a city freeway, or just beyond the sidewalk of a busy intersection; roadside memorials erected for someone who died on that spot. It’s an old Latin tradition, though I’m not sure if it dates from old Mexico or from […]
I’ve got to remember to bring my macro lens with me next time I go shooting cemteries. These quiet places are ideal worlds for many small life forms. Here’s a nice jumping spider I chased round and round the headstone trying to capture a likeness. I might have missed the little critter but for the […]
This week I went to Anna, another small town north of McKinney that’s becoming another suburb. It’s sad that the prairie is being turned into subdivisions, but at least I can document a few of the “rustic” things before they’re gone. I was looking for a cemetery that I never found and spotted the corner […]
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