Screws In My Coffee

Lonnie's first Huston-Tillotson pay check I have been without a regular paycheck for a little over two years. This is my first check right before I deposit it in the bank.

[caption id="attachment_439" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Lone Worm Ranch Garden Spiders"] [/caption] I am living in a bug farm out at the Lone Worm Ranch. There are grass ants, spiders, hoppers and wasps all over the place. My favorites are the spiders which technically are not bugs. The photo that I took is of a spider that made a web in front of my kitchen window. All the large garden spiders are females and they eat the grass hoppers that hop up the side of the house and get caught. This spider is about 3 or 4 inches in diameter.

I was getting ready to go to work one morning and stepped outside my house on the Lone Worm Ranch. When I looked east towards the forest the sun was just peaking over the trees. This I had seen many times but what was above was a huge thunder cloud that had the most beautiful lighting. I took a picture but it hardly does justice to being able to stand and look east then gradually arch your back until you are looking straight up at beautiful clouds.

Well as I was driving to work today I had a tearful moment. I usually like the meditative 47 mile drive from my ranch near Winchester, Texas to Austin, Texas. Today as I was listening to aBruce Hornsby sing Mandolin Rain I started to think about my dad and started to cry. I'm not sure why I was crying as I dove towards Austin. Was it the music or was it the fact that I was fulfilling my dad's wish to live in Texas on the ranch. For waht ever reason there were tears flowing down my face and a feeling of both joy and sadness in my heart at the same time. I knew that my das was happy for what I was doing and I was sad that I could only feel his spirit and not really talk to him about what I was doing.

I have a job in Austin and will start work tomorrow. It was my goal to find work here in Texas and live with my dad during his retirement. The fact that my dad passed away on April 1, 2004 made me more commited to relocating to central Texas to be near the ranch.

If you are mildly curious about the ranch in Texas then click on this link http://www.lonewormranch.com and view the updated web site. I have placed some photos and maps there for your reference. I have also placed new photos on the http://www.wormley.org website. The new photos are under the categories that start with 00. If you plan to visit let me know and I will tell you where you can find the key in the event that I am not there. The house has electricity, well water and heat. Currently there is not a lot of furniture so if you plan to stay overnight bring a sleeping bag. There is plenty of floor space as the house is 1600 square feet. Be prepared for lots of bugs if you visit in the summer months. If you plan on walking outside on the ranch long jeans and leather shoes are the best. The property has lots of thorns that get stuck in canvas shoes. Even hiking boots with rubber soles have a rough time. As you might guess the best shoe to wear is a cowboy boot with leather bo

I arrived back in the Austin area on Father's Day last Sunday. When I left Portland the weather was just starting to get really nice. When I left Texas for Oregon in March the spring flowers were just starting to grow. Now it has rained 16 inches this month in central Texas and it feels like Oregon.

For me happy hour is about 1 to 2 hours before sunset when there is what photographers call golden light. This photo is in my opinion one of the best that I have taken. Aaron Johnson a friend that I have been sharing a hotel room with and working with on a farm near Boardman, Oregon. I had described taking a photo like this the night before to Aaron. Friday evening we were driving out to a tower 7 miles from shop on the farm. I was looking out the truck window watching the wheat when the composition that I had described appeared.

I took my family to the Columbia Gorge which is always a favorite day trip for us. We had no place in mind for the hike when we left, but my son Zak got hungry righ near Starvation Creek State Park so that is wherewe stopped for our hike. The Columbia Gorge is beautiful any time of the year. We traveled about 60 miles from our house to get to Starvation Creek . This picture was taken near the base of the water fall. I did not get a good photo of the water fall but you can see how beautiful the area is from this photo. Using a self timer on my tri-pod I was able to get a fairly decent picture of my family stainding by the small water fall. There are larger water falls in the area but this is the first time that we visited this small and quite retreat. There were no large crowds at this water fall like there are at the world famous Multnomah Falls just a few miles west.

Well for some reason Terry and I are still married. We celebrated 22 years of marriage on April 24, 2003.

Well writing is therapy for me and I have to write to think. I am still in a daze over the death of my dad and the shock of being back in Portland after spending a few months in Texas. I supposed that shifting gears is supposed to be easy but for me now days it is not. One thing that I have realized is that throughout my life I have always had circles of friends that were very different from each other. So what has stayed consistent during my transition from a boot wearing geek to a fleece jacket wearing soccer dad? The constant thread is the fact that I still like photography. So I am going to continue capturing images with the goal of kick starting my creative mind again. With this in mind I am taking my camera everywhere I go and have been taking pictures.

What a shock to be back in the land of good coffee and rain. I suppose that when you fly from place to place the change in climate and local culture is more shocking to most. For me the trip that started at the Lone Worm Ranch near Winchester, Texas late in March and dragged me through LA and my dad’s last days and funeral to Portland has change me forever. I left here full of optimism, purpose and direction and I return with a scary excitement of not knowing what I will do next.

The Going home ceremony for my dad was held today

My dad, Rev. L. C. Wormley passed away today.

3/25/2004 1:00 AM Tuesday at 5:20 AM I left the Lone Worm Ranch and headed for Mordor, I mean Los Angeles. I made this comparison after a few hours of being inside the city limits of this big bad motor city. Going from the almost idealistic world living on a ranch in the middle of Texas and then driving all day and night to end up in a swirling mass of human flesh, concrete, steel and manicured landscaping was an experience that I look forward to reversing.

There is too much fun stuff to do in Austin. This weekend is my last one that I will spend in Texas for a while. I enjoyed spending some time this weekend with a three friends that I have had the pleasure to meet in the short time that I have lived here. I also wanted to visit a few of my favorite spots before I left.

Feeding cattle for the first time using the bales of hay in Cliff's barn was fun. Cliff has square bales of hay in his barn and big round bales out in the corral in the field. When the cattle heard the tractor fire up they thought Cliff was going to go out, get a big round bale out of the corral, and feed them. All of the cattle and 7 calfs came to the fence and started mooing for hay. Cliff said that he was thinking about feeding them and I offered to help. Throwing hay to cows is a simple task, but it was the first time that I had a chance to feed cows especially the one that Cliff gave me. I also got to see the calf that she had up close. All the little calves are so cute and they run around the older cattle in a frisky manner.

Today I took my uncle Cliff to the doctor for a check-up. I drove him in my farm rat maroon Toyota Camry. We drove the eighteen miles to La Grange listening to country music and talking about life, health, and cattle.

PhotoShop and CSS how can I live without them! Well the Austin.com development site is taking shape. I'm finally getting a chance to do some creative work on the banners. I'm also working on a ranch web site for the Martin's. I had fun putting a horse's head in a banner. This site is being done in CSS with out the use of tables.

At long last I finally have a site up for development and learning Zope and Plone. I have wanted to do this for about a year and now I finally have done it. I tried to get Cold Fusion configured on my Linux server and failed. I have a few PHP-Nuke sites up and have used them for a year on small sites. I want to design a big site and knew that Zope was the tool, but was too lazy and did not have the time and focus to devote to it. Here in Texas I am making it a top priority to develop and improve my web skills so that I can design good sites for my clients.

I have had a fond affection for trains all of my life. As early as I can remember I have loved to watch trains. When I was a small boy I had an American Flyer toy train and my brother had a Lionel. We played with them a lot. I purchased another Lionel train as an adult I and on occasion I set it up for my kids and at Christmas. Anyone that has played with these electric trains knows the joy of lying on the floor with your eyes near the track and watching the train rush by. If you run the train too fast it will fly off the track at a sharp turn. You then have the fun of picking up the engine in your hands and placing it on the track.