Out Of Texas
May 19, 2009
It has taken a while longer than we expected but we are out of the state of Texas. As you may recall our original plan was to stay in Mission, Texas for three months and possibly a fourth month. Due to circumstances we stayed five and a half months. The extra time that we spent in Mission was due to some events that we had hoped would not happen for several years yet. My Mother in Law was diagnosed with advanced Alzheimers and was rapidly becoming worse. She finally reached a stage that we could not take care of her in the manner which she needed. While a motor home is a great place to live and a great way to travel and see the country, it is not conducive to caring for a person who is needing help with almost any normal task. There simply is not room enough through the doors to push a wheel chair. There are too many steps into the interior for us to be able to get her in and out safely. We knew that some day there would be a time when we could not give her care she needed and it finally got to be that way. But at least she was able to be with us for four and a half years. Helen has moved to an assisted living facility for Alzheimer patients. It is a small place with only about thirty five residents. The staff seems to be very caring people and they seem to be willing to do any thing that is needed. Helen seems to be doing a lot better in the home than she was with us. Her Dr told us before she moved that there is often an improvement that occurs. Whether it is because of a more routine schedule or people that are not related to her taking care of her or other factors has never been determined. At any rate it seems that the home is a better place for her to be.
We are currently in Wichita, Kansas and will go on to Topeka tomorrow, May 18. The travel that we have done in the previous four days has been faster than any we have done since we have started full timing. We have several times taken four weeks to cover the distance we have covered in the three days we actually were driving this time. To be right honest I would rather take a longer time and see more of the country. Still it was nice to see the wheat that was already harvested in Texas, then in Oklahoma the wheat was about half golden and half green and here in front of the Vectra the wheat field is all green. If a trip of this distance is made slower it is very possible to see nothing except fields that have been harvested. As we were driving along we saw a couple signs that I thought were interesting. The first was a sign that said, "SEEDLESS PECANS", now how is that possible. The pecan that the nutmeat comes from is the seed as far as I know. Wouldn't that be about like seedless sunflower seeds? Or would that be a tree that is too young to have produced any nuts? The other sign that caught my eye was a very professionally painted sign advertising the services at an auto service center. Among the items listed was "GREZE JOBS." What part of the car needs greze? There was one time that I heard some people called grezers. Are they highly trained mechanics that only do this work like a transmission specialist? I should have stopped and asked them. Or maybe not.
Just a couple days before we left Bentsen Grove I heard about a humming bird that had built a nest on a swag lamp chain on the porch of one of the residents. I have never seen a hummingbirds nest in real life. So I had to go look and take a couple pictures. It is amazing that the nest is only about three foot from the door that goes into the house. When the lady steps in or out of her door the door comes within a few inches of the nest. What makes it doubly surprising is the fact that this is the second year that the bird has built a nest in this location. While the nest is in a location that seems to discourage predatory birds from coming near, which is good, there seems to be another problem with the location. Somehow the nest has been slowly tilting so the effective size of the nest is shrinking and also the babies, there are two, are growing and need more room. I understand that twice one of the babies has fallen out of the nest. In case one of did fall the lady that lives in the house had placed towels on the table beneath the nest to cushion the fall. When it did fall a neighbor was able to put it back in the nest using a spoon. When I took the pictures I used a long telephoto so I took no chance of disturbing either the birds or the nest. I really wanted to straighten the nest somehow but I was afraid to touch anything or approach any closer than I did. I was able to see slight movement in the nest but I am afraid that the picture leaves a lot to your imagination. It gives an idea of the size of the nest and the babies.
THERE ARE TWO BABY HUMMING BIRDS IN THIS NEST
THE NEST HAS TILTED ALMOST FORTY FIVE DEGREES
As we came up through Texas we stayed just south of San Antonio. We have been through this area several times and have visited the Missions. We are there on hot days and we always get to at least one of the mission sites close to closing times. It was not different this time. We had been out looking at the countryside around Poteet and had a late lunch near San Jose Mission. I was not ready to go home so I suggested that we go for a short look. Just as we got to the Mission a movie about the place started which we watched and then there was about a half hour before closing time. Even though we had been there before I saw things and learned things that were a total surprise at this location.
The irrigation system that was developed for the fields was quite extensive. There was around fifty miles of ditches that served fifteen hundred acres or more of cropland. In addition to the irrigating of the fields the ditches brought water to the mission to provide power to the grist mill. Of all the missions, San Jose was the only one that operated a mill. Records show that the Franciscans had the mill operating by 1794. Since Spanish ladies and gentlemen at that time ate only wheat and did not eat corn it was necessary to build a mill to reduce wheat to flour. Flour does not last as long as the raw grain so the mill was operated every day to produce the needed flour to bake bread. At the speed they would have operated the mill about a bushel of wheat could have been ground every hour or 600 to 800 pounds every day if desired. In a good year when there was an excess amount of grain produced and therefore excess flour produced, it would be traded to the other missions and residents in the area. A close look at the picture below shows that the mill was operated in a counterclockwise direction. That was only done in Spain and Portugal. All other European countries turned their mills clockwise. The water was supplied to the wheel from a ten foot deep pool of water called a forebay. The Spanish learned this technology from the Moors before they were driven from Spain.
THE WATERWHEEL UNDER THE SAN JOSE GRIST MILL
The working part of the grist mill was two mill stones each weighing about three hundred and fifty pounds. The millstones were made from quartzite stone imported from France where the most expensive and best millstones in the world were produced. It is notable that while the Spanish and French were constantly at war with each other there was trading between the two countries or at least between merchants. Both stones were rough on one side and smooth on the other. The smooth sides had grooves, called farrows, cut into them. The top stone or running stone was rotated above the stationary bottom stone or bed stone by about the thickness of a piece of paper. The grain would be cut between the grooves with action similar to cutting scissors. There is actually no grinding that occurs. There was a stick, called a damsel in Britain, that bounced along the rough surface of the running stone. It jiggled a grain hopper shaking a steady stream of grain into the center hole, called an eye, cut into the center of the upper wheel. The miller would feel the product or run of mill between his thumb and finger thus making adjustments according to the "rule of thumb." The run of mill would be sieved through woven cloth to remove oversized material. It would take a couple hundred pounds of flour every day to provide the bread needed by the approximately three hundred and fifty people that lived there during its heyday. Unfortunately in the first ten years of the existence of the mission seventy percent of the native inhabitants died of diseases carried by the Spanish. Since the continuation of the mission was dependent upon maintaining a stable work force recruitment was often done by military forces. Much of the training of the natives in various trades and how to defend themselves was done by one or two friars and only one soldier. Skilled stone masons and some other skilled artisans were brought from Spain. At one time the entire front and the interior walls were covered with frescoes of multicolored geometric designs. The frescoes were decorated using a tediously applied art form. The front was frescoed with red and blue crosses and with yellow and orange squares to simulate great depressed stones. There are still some indications of the frescoes that can be seen on the outside. There are only a few partial designs in the interior left today that have not succumbed to the ravages of time in the two hundred and fifty years since they were painted
THE GRIST WHEELS, GRAIN HOPPER WITH DAMSEL, AND TOOLS OF THE GRIST MILL
Our next destination is Topeka, Kansas where we will spend about a week. While we are there Erma will go to a class reunion. We also plan to spend some time with family that live in the area and I hope to visit a couple sites that I have not been able to visit on other trips. From there we have to go on up to South Dakota so Erma can renew her drivers license. Again while we are up in that country there are a few places that I would like to see again in some cases and in a few others some places that I have heard about but never had the opportunity to visit. I am always looking for new interesting places to visit and places where I can learn more about the history of the area. Any suggestions anybody?
Till later this is Doug of
Peace On The Road
