Blog

Nothing speaks of home like a quilt, especially one with a family history. There’s something about the patching and stitching and padding that gives one comfort and joy. A book, Texas Quilts and Quilters: A Lone Star Legacy, to be issued in October by Texas Tech University Press, has some wonderful stories about the roles…

When old acquaintances ask what I’ve been “doing” since leaving an exciting newspaper career for home-based work and motherhood, I sometimes flash a snapshot of Lauren, Molly and Maclain. “I’ve been doing my part,” I tell them, “to increase the world’s supply of redheads.” Little did I know how important my life’s work would be….

Mark Simon, farm manager at Hilltop Gardens in the rural Lower Rio Grande Valley community of Lyford, can testify to the unexpected advantages of living and working close to 40 acres of aloe vera plants. “I burned my hand once, getting off of a piece of machinery,” he recalled, almost flinching at the memory of…

Aside from the soldiers and supplies that Texas provided to the Confederacy, the state’s most important contribution to the Civil War might have been the salt processed at the Swenson Salines in Lampasas County, near Lometa. While the Confederacy lasted, the place was one of several across the country known as the Confederate Salt Works….

This corner of the Hill Country retains its European flavor.