Texas Countryside Photos

I went for a drive out west of Katy, Texas one afternoon in late May or early June. I wanted some pictures of the countryside around where I grew up.

When I was a kid, Katy was a mix between a small but quickly expanding suburb to the west of Houston and an older farming town populated by rice farmers and "country" people. Maybe I should say it was a segregation of suburban yuppies and country farmers. My family lived in the suburban part for a few years. We had our own schools (Taylor), and they had theirs (Katy High - Texas high school football champions several times in the past).

Now Katy is a monster. It was the fastest growing city in America several years in a row. Around 12,500 people live inside the Katy city limits, but more than 164,000 people live in the surrounding suburban communities.

I took most of these pictures in the rural area west of Katy, where the suburbs have yet to conquer the countryside:

Even the country folk need their Coca Cola.

I stopped at these rice silos to take a few photos.

I looked for the owner, in order to ask for his permission to walk around and take pictures.

I found some Mexican workers, and asked in broken Spanish if the Jefe was around.

He was gone, and they didn't know when to expect him back.

I decided to take some photos without express permission.

While I was retrieving my gear from the car, a maroon Crown Vic pulled into the drive.

The Crown Vic is a real farmer's luxury sedan.

The driver was probably in his 70's.

He pulled over to me and rolled down his window.

I explained who I was and asked if I could wander around his property and take a few pictures.

He said, "yes."

This is a Cowboy Cadillac. This particular model is a red Ford F-250.

See the US flags coming out of the windows? See the "Cowboy Up" sticker in the center of the tailgate, the Texas stickers flanking it, and the "Cowboy Cadillac" stickers on the windows? Too many accessories to name. This gentleman is living large in rural Texas.

This is a real Cadillac. It belongs to my parents, and is what I drove most of the time while I was at home.

The white ball in the center is a spider egg sack. You can barely see two of the mother's legs poking around the sack.

In addition to rice farming, there are a considerable number of cows raised in the rural areas outside of Katy. My dad even has a few.

This is one of the water pumps that dot the local landscape. The pumps move water from wells into large rice fields, or paddies.

Fields such as this one, spreading out behind the various pump parts.

My part of Texas is flat, with many long, straight roads that appear to drive off into eternity.