A day in the country

Confession: I am a workaholic, a conclusion I probably reached years ago but am acutely aware of again today. For the second day in a row, I did not a lick of work. Jordan and I went today to visit my brother at his ranch outside Tolar—for those not in the know, Tolar s a small town mostly of deserted stone buildings beyond Granbury, between Fort Worth and Stephenville. Okay if  you’re not from North Texas, it won’t make sense.

Tolar does have a fine-looking bank and an all-purpose quick-stop store and the Methodist church which is our signal of where to turn off the highway. But the stone buildings have taken root in my mind—several are shells, roofless, windows gone, yet standing strong and straight. Someday I want to know the story of Tolar when it was a vibrant community, when those stone buildings were filled with people and activity. Today, I want to see someone move in and put clever gift shops and restaurants in those structures, but I suppose the problem is that Granbury is too close. Everyone goes there for shopping, dining, whatever. Granbury has the historic square and a new, supper HEB grocery—what else could one want? 

When you turn at the Methodist church in Tolar you go through a small residential area—so people really do live there—and worship there, because there are a couple of good-sized, solid-looking churches. But when you turn you still have nine miles to go to my brother’s ranch. 

We went because John, a retired osteopathic physician, has inherited the family ability for osteopathic treatment. In short, he has magic hands. And Jordan has been, as we say in the vernacular, down in the back. So while John treated her, I had a good visit with sister-in-law Cindy, and then we all had a wonderful lunch of chicken salad and fruit salad—delicious peach from a tree in their yard and wonderful large sweet blueberries from Costco.

Is Jordan cured? Not by a long shot—to both their disappointment. But she and her uncle now have a better handle on what’s going on in her back. And if someone comes at her saying “surgery,” she knows her response.

And it was a fine day for a drive in the country—hot but sunny and the land looks partly green, partly brown—it is, after all, August in Texas. We went the Chisholm Trail Tollway, which is empty and fast, but we saw a horrendous accident. On the way out, the entire north-bound side of the tollway was shut down; on the way home, it was open with one lane only. An eighteen-wheeler had apparently hit the guard rail, flipped, and caught fire. Makes you worry about the driver—and is a sobering moment.

Scallops, which look belter than they tasted

Home, with most of the day gone, I fixed scallops for supper. I ordered a quarter lb. from Central Market and was tickled that they called to say that would only give me two—how many did I want? I said, just for me, three. Tried a new recipe and was disappointed—it called for brining them, and maybe I did it wrong, but they were way too salty. I’m going back to my tried-and-true and much simpler method.

A long but happy day.