Category: Uncategorized (Page 32 of 46)

This morning, 3 energetic TOWNies joined me for a great hike on the Lady Bird Lake Trail.  Jacque, Janice, Erin and I not only hiked the planned 4 mile loop from the I-35 bridge to Longhorn Dam and back, but also the 3.22 mile loop from I-35 to Congress and back.  We hiked the 7.22 miles in about two and a half hours!  Yea!

Most of us had not hiked this section in a while and it was our first time to see the “Forever Bicycles” sculpture comprised of 1200 bicycles.  It was a little WARM this morning, but the shady parts of the trail gave us a break from the sun and there was a nice breeze.

To meet the food requirement of an official TOWN outing, we stopped under a shady tree and shared some mixed nuts and grapes.  Erin is new to TOWN and this was her first outing. We enjoyed meeting Erin and hope she will join us on another outing soon.  It was nice being out on the trail today with such great company!

Thanks,

CarolynD

Despite the recent extremely high temperatures in Austin, 4 TOWN members, one puppy dog and 2 quests went kayaking Wednesday on Ladybird Lake.  The temperature on the water was much cooler as we paddled toward Red Bud Isle.  We saw lots of turtles, and several blue herons.  Kayakers included Diane N and her friend Paula T., Carol J and her friend Lynn, Suzanne R and her pup, Tucker and Anna E.

It seems the waiter at Shady Grove knows this group and greeted us as long lost customers.  (What have you guys been doing at Shady Grove that the waiter knows you all and your drinking habits?)  We all enjoyed a drink and meal that suited both the vegetarian and the gluten free diner.  Till next time!

Diane

Gail PC, Judy A, Janice B and Marilyn F enjoyed a day at the new Central Library.  Judy pointed  out that it is another “destination” in Austin, to show folks who come to visit you.  The area near  the old power plant is now on “Electric Drive,” and I appreciate Margaret Moser Terrace, too.  Gail and Judy stayed for an early lunch at the Cookbook Café and recommend the chicken pot pie and chicken salad. Janice and Marilyn browsed about, enjoyed the view, and attended the Talk Green to Me session provided by City Staff.

Getting there

I parked my car at Lamar Union/Alamo Drafthouse and had to wait 3 minutes for a bus and the ride took 10 minutes!  I had purchased a day pass for $2.50 and just had to let the card reader blip my phone to pay.  I took the #803, which is my favorite, now.  Gail PC and Judy A parked in the garage for a few dollars and found space easily at 10 am.  Janice B, a true TOWNie, rode her bike there!  Yes JaniceB!

What you can do at your Library

Learn to set up your Kindle or Nook reader to borrow e-books.
Get your Library card; use it from home to reserve online and hold a title to pick up later.  Note that several suburban residents can also use the APL.
Watch a DVD movie or listen to a CD at an audio visual station.
Check out an audiobook-CD for your long road trip.
Find some darn interesting titles. Here’s one:  Radium Girls—the Rare Story of America’s Shining Women, by Kate Moore.
You can also reserve a meeting room for your small group.

Talk Green to Me series: The State of Austin’s Food System

The speaker was Edwin Marty, the City of Austin’s first Food Policy Manager.  A sustainable food system has 4 parts: growing, selling, eating, & recycling (composting); those parts need to be connected and protected. The speaker described how the city staff looked across all the city departments thru a lens of food.  Data were collected and analyzed.  They found out that everybody in Austin—across all income levels–wants to feed their family with good healthy food.  But 13 city zip codes don’t even have grocery stores, and 16% of Austin population is “food insecure.”  Access to healthy food is inequitable.  To make the situation worse, we are losing agricultural land at the rate of 9 acres a day, losing it
to the push for affordable (dense) housing (150K units of affordable housing in the next 10 years in Austin). Less than 1% of our food is grown locally, yet locally grown food is a sustainability strategy since energy (transport fuel) needed to bring it to market is less than from longer distances.

Hope on the Horizon

There are 65 community gardens in Austin, agencies are opening up public lands for community gardens, and 220 schools have gardens; other methods are being encouraged so people can eat “fresh for less,” including incentivizing pop-up produce stands at the schools.  Partnerships across agencies plan to offer incentives for buying healthy food.  A new program will be rolled out soon such that when you go buy produce at your grocery store you get 2-for-1 prices if the produce is from Texas.

What you can do

Participate in the city curbside composting.
Find more information: http://austintexas.gov/food
Also, at the National Level, find out about the various forms of the Farm Bill and let your
representatives know how you feel about sustainable agricultural and food supply practices.

MarilynF

We had a good evening kayaking Lady Bird Lake on Wednesday, July 11.  There were six TOWN-Austin women, Anna E, Debbie W, Carol J, Peg G, Judy A, Gail P-C.  We had a chance to visit before we got on the water and found out Carol J and Judy A are neighbors. Small world.

We kayaked at a steady pace around Red Bud Island and then with time left we kayaked toward downtown.  The water was smooth as glass which was perfect for all the stand up boarders we passed.  Being on the water made the hot temp bearable.  We ended the evening at Shady Grove for a bite to eat outside.  We had fun visiting and laughing.  Linda Foss will be leading the next kayak date on Lady Bird Lake, July 25.  Hope you can be there.  Gail P-C

There were four TOWN-Austin women who kayaked Lady Bird Lake. Jacque A, Judie T, Carol J and Gail P-C.  It was a bit cooler on the water and in the shade.  It was a beautiful evening on the lake. Carol J and Gail P-C kayaked around Red Bud Island and Jacque and Judy enjoyed kayaking along the shore. They saw more wild life (two great blue herons, male wood ducks, a raccoon and turtles) than we did around Red Bud Island. Although we did hear the sound of owls.

We met up back at the Rowing Dock and found that Carol, Jacque and Judy had likely met at an outing with Travis Audubon Society. We visited a bit and all decided to head home instead of going out to eat.  The Rowing Dock was staying open late for full moon boating and there was a crowd.  We kayak on Lady Bird Lake the second and fourth Wednesdays. Hope you can join us next time, July 11.

Gail

Ah, hope springs eternal!  The names listed for our outing swelled during the week, including MeetUp pals.  But when it came to the day and time, we were hanging with ‘bated breath waiting for Lisa McM’s friend, Kerrie Q’s arrival, to make our colorful boat parade a little larger.

Lisa has kept her town membership, but she had actually moved to Portland, TX and has just now returned, and paddling with Kerrie, her former and now current-again work-mate.  Their laughter echoed across the lake, a nice background sound to our outing.  The lake was calm, and only on our return did the breeze pick up. No whitecaps this time.

The new recruit at the dock needed to be educated as to Dawn K’s venerability in Kayaking Circles, which should have been perfectly apparent to him.  Not only was she wearing an appropriate, attractive, and wonderfully female life jacket, but she was also sporting a stunning knife of many uses, hinting at more challenging routes than our usual flat water.  We all took turns guessing which of the houses on the cliff was her Rollingwood residence,she declined to say.

We kept watching for the secretive herons who can often be found along the leafy shore along the lake in the direction of Redbud Island, and if we’d had someone knowledgeable with us we would know if that glimpse was really a green heron.  Further along, in the nesting ground up by the outfall of the Tom Miller Dam, we were treated to a great blue heron leaving the trees with their characteristic honk.  Observing carefully along the north shore of the lake, Maria V. may have spotted a ringtail, long gone by the time we thought to go back and look for ourselves.

Birdy highlight of the trip was a duck who paddled from halfway across the lake, directly toward Kerrie.  “Well, I have an apple,” she confessed, and handed it over while his friends gathered around, too. How did he know? Thanks  to Lisa for the photo, available after the usual (unscheduled) trip to the Genius Bar.

Supper at Maudie’s included only Maria and me, so we were able to give ourselves over entirely to real estate; her development plans wonderfully more inspirational than my coastal repairs; the usual TOWN good company.

Our next outing will be on the 4th Wednesday of June, the 27th, so mark your calendars!

Live Oak Ridge Campout at Belton Lake, June 7-10

We ended the camping season with a small, but brave  group of TOWNies.  Beverly T set up Thursday, and Judy S from Dallas arrived braving the heat in a tent! (She says it wasn’t too bad.)

Susan W, Gloria B, and Sandy O arrived early afternoon Friday to beat the heat with a few dips in the clear, cold lake.  We chilled our insides with frozen margaritas from the margarita momma to accompany chicken fajitas compliments of Susan and Beverly.   We enjoyed chatting under the stars with fans blowing.  Miss Pam and her crew arrived late Friday.

Early to bed and early to rise!  Sandy O took off to Women in the outdoors to learn welding and bow fishing.  She won two gift baskets and a handgun in a raffle!  Well worth the drive over there!

Beverly dragged Gloria and Susan out to snag a few geocaches along the lake edge, where there was a little breeze.  Miss Pam’s crew hung out in the lake all day.  After we ate great food at  Backyard BBQ, Susan led us all to the haunted Maxwell Bridge where we scared up a geocache in the oldest cemetery in Bell Co.  All’s well that ends with Dairy Queen//even if we had to visit two DQ’s t! o find ice cream!

We were up way past our usual bedtime so we slept in Sunday, awaking to blueberry pancakes and bacon courtesy of Beverly and Sandy.

We will miss each other’s company until the next campout at Lake Livingston in September!

Submitted by Beverly

What a beautiful evening to kayak on Lady Bird Lake! Six women Anna E, Janis K, Christina O, Linda F, Bonnie J and Gail P-C kayaked. Janis K brought her brand new kayak, (that fit in her car!) and she loves it. This was the first time Christina O ever kayaked. After a bit of instruction she did great! She is interested to join TOWN-Austin. We had a good time visiting along the way.

Several women witnessed a swan going after a boat. I told the story of the time Jacque fought off an attacking swan, on Lady Bird Lake, with her paddle. Sorry I didn’t get a picture of that!  We saw a crane and a few ducks. The water was calm and it was a bit breezy. We all had a good workout.

Got back to the Rowing Dock by 8 pm then we all went to Shady Grove to eat and visit some more.  Janis and Christine found out they live in the same neighborhood!  Anna and Janis shared some pictures of the quilts they have made. Such talented women!

A fun time was had by all!  Our next kayak date on Lady Bird Lake is Wed April 25. Linda Foss will be leading. Hope you can be there.
Gail P-C

A perfect evening to kayak on Lady Bird Lake!

Five TOWN-Austin women, (Maria, Peg, Gail, Diane and Lois), enjoyed visiting and kayaking. We had a nice breeze. We didn’t see much wild life. One huge swan came quite close to us. We hoped we weren’t close to a nest! But he calmly paddled pass us. We kayaked toward downtown and marveled at how the skyline has developed!

Afterwards we went to Shady Grove for a bite to eat and laughs!  GailP-C

Seventeen Townies, six guests, and seven dogs arrived on various days throughout the weekend. A few brave souls stayed in tents and seemed to be okay in the heat while others stayed in motels or campers.

We enjoyed everything offered in the campground – birding, hiking, swimming or just sitting in the water under a tree to keep cool in the refreshing spring fed water, kayaking, cycling, tubing, golfing, attending the ranger led talks on Snakes and More and the Fawn Trail Bird Walk.

Two groups drove to the Caverns of Sonoma which is a national nature landmark and ranks as one of the most beautiful show caves in the world.

We also has a special time of remembrance of our beloved JudyL with memories and prayers at one of her favorite spots on the river.

We also had a retirement of the flag presented by our former scout leader, SusanW. We had the privilege of having a former military person, Pam, help with the flag retirement.

Of course we had our pot luck and the special beverages several nights.  JuneA