Features

Pandemic, food supply, hungry kids and transportation are just a couple of the issues involved when a USDA grant for free and reduced summer breakfasts and lunches for WISD kids and others would end at the end of June.

Like almost all schools these days, the operation of KAPS has been disrupted by the coronavirus.

The following is the second in a three part series covering the 2020 retirees of WISD, honoring them for their service to our community’s children as dedicated teachers, nurses and other staff members.

The world is going through a time that is totally unpredictable, news changing from day to day, event to event. Urging people to wear a mask can cause conflict, but with the huge jump in COVID-19, the present situation is getting more and more serious. Each day there are more cases in Hays County and the valley. Simple steps can be taken, like social distancing and wearing masks that cover the mouth and nose.

In my garden world lime green or chartreuse rules! Last year when I bought my house, I fantasized about what I would do artistically with the long rock wall that stretched almost the whole width of the backyard. Someone referred to it as a retaining wall and I was incensed, this is ‘The Wall’ the focal point of my soon to be masterpiece. My plans included several plants of Illusion Emerald Lace Sweet Potato to gently drape over the rocks.

Back in 2007, Dripping Springs resident Jimmy Winkler had a great idea. It would soon become a reality and ultimately became a tradition in Dripping Springs and all of Hays County. Winkler initiated a program that would help soothe innocent children who fell victim to a tragedy such as car accidents and domestic abuse, with Beanie Babies.

As I was out weed eating the King Ranch Grass along the roadside of my yard I spotted some precious small dark pink wildflowers that I had not noticed when casually walking in my neighborhood. These low growing plants (3 to 7 inches tall) with dark pink flowers (and a yellow center) are called Lady Bird’s Centaury (Centaurium texense) in honor of Lady Bird Johnson. The flowers have 5 petals and are said to be found in dry open grass (exactly where I found them in my yard) from May to July. It is an annual native flower that reseeds itself.

About twenty years ago as my neighbor at the time, Della Broderick, and I were driving down Wimberley’s main street, RR 12, she commented that a Texas town she had visited had lined their main street with the U.S. Flag on patriotic holidays. Wouldn’t it be nice if Wimberley did that, she said. Well, Keep Wimberley Beautiful pounced on her suggestion and bought some flags to put up. PEC gave us permission to use their light poles so we installed flag holders on about thirty of them. We placed the holders high enough so that someone walking beneath the flags could not just reach up and pull them off. This means that a ladder has to be climbed for each flag to be put up and then taken down.

Setting the pace for Fort Worth’s Juneteenth caravan on Friday is 93-year-old Opal Lee. The activist and educator will lead her community on foot for two and a half miles — a distance that represents the number of additional years it took before enslaved people in Texas were informed of their freedom after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The following is the first in a three part series covering the 2020 retirees of WISD, honoring them for their service to our community’s children as dedicated teachers, nurses and other staff members.

Google ‘Dell Hood’ and the latest on him are references to the Wimberley Village Library. He’s the Board of Trustees’ President. He’s been volunteering there, but is finally retiring from being in charge of cataloging materials at the library, which he’s done for 25 years. He is also playing a big part of the new library expansion project, and board president until the end of 2021.

One of The Garden Guy’s favorite new plants making its debut in 2020 has a name so unusual I had to look up the definition and give it a little thought. It is called Unplugged. Did you know we had a National Day of Unplugging?

John Ball has been painting for a long time. In fact, he’s a second generation painter.