This weekend I got to tour the Willow City historic schoolhouse as part of the Friends of Gillespie County Country Schools Tour. Willow City is a small town located out near Fredericksburg, Texas, about an hour and a half from my current home. The school itself is an historic building, dating back to 1905. It’s a two story brick structure with several rooms downstairs and a large auditorium style room upstairs, which served as a classroom for the high school students. Inside one of the downstairs rooms there was something called a “sand table” which is sort of like a giant sandbox, elevated on a tabletop like setting. That’s what you see pictured here. This is a close up detail of some toys in the sand table. I guess they used the sand table when it was raining or too hot for the children to play outside. Another interesting tidbit about the Willow City school was that it was actually a replacement school. The original school, dating back to the early to mid-1800’s washed away in a flood and in 1905 they built the two story brick replacement structure which stands today, included as part of the historic schoolhouse tour. I was enamored with the little toys and especially liked the expression on the little “frog man face” so I setup and took this shot while I was touring the building. They had a very interesting piano in the upstairs room so look for some shots of that to follow as well.
It was great to get to tour the old building, although I have to say it was a bit hot. I wasn’t too hot inside the building itself, as they have some mighty ceiling fans going and, being a brick building and all, it’s out of the sun, but, dang, it was over 100 degrees this weekend. It was hot. I’ve jokingly been saying that Hell called and they want their weather back! Yes, it really does get all that hot in central Texas in August. I suppose I should have grown to expect this but, somehow, when you are out in it and the sweat starts pouring off the back of your neck and your boots get filled with puddles of sweat from it rolling down your leg, why, it just kind of feels especially hot and sticky.
Even with the heat, it was a nice weekend. The trip out there is nice. It’s an actual drive out in the country and I must confess that part of central Texas is a bit more green than the Austin area. More cows (real cows, not just the ones you see here in small form,) especially longhorns, more green, more open roads, more space, less traffic, and fewer people. Oh, and a lot of wineries. When I say “a lot” I mean we must have crossed paths with about 50 of them. Seriously. There is even one called “Fat Ass Winery” (I can’t make this stuff up!) Who knew there was a whole “Tuscany in Texas” movement complete with wineries and fake Italian style castles out in the hill country? (I sure didn’t!)
All in all it was happy but hot shooting. And I got to introduce you to my nice little froggy friend who’s probably still out stuck in the sandbox. It’s not easy being green, well, not in this heat anyway.
Until next time…
