FOCUS ON TEXAS

Snow Daze
By Ashley Clary

Brrr! For much of the state, snow falls once in a blue moon. And when that rare snow day does come along, Texans are quick to grab their cameras. Whether a postcard-perfect scene or an unfortunate snow-in, your photos sent heartwarming shivers up our spines. 

It was hard to escape the ominous beauty of this shot sent in by Houston County Electric Cooperative members Tommy and Penny Kincaid. This cold snap hit the Grapeland area in 2003.	When a freeze hit Blanco County, Pedernales EC member Carol Schlachter had to grab her camera to snap a photo of this well-known plant normally associated with hot and dry conditions.
“If you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait five minutes!” said Comanche EC member Mary Beth Mazurek. Just 24 hours prior, she had taken this same shot of her daughter Carly in the bluebonnets—only it was a bright, sunny day.	“We don’t get much snow, so when we do, we take full advantage,” Bandera EC member Kim Malone said of this little guy her mom, Shirley Albrecht, also a Bandera EC member, made by scraping the snow off her deck railing in Pipe Creek. “She is still a kid,” she added.
Christine Stromberg, a Grayson-Collin EC member, witnessed this minute-long serendipitous moment after a 2008 surprise snowstorm hit Anna. “The sun came up over our small lake and created this amazing pink world,” she said.	When a March 2008 snowstorm hit Grayson County, Grayson-Collin EC member Skip Hill saw something not seen every day—his neighbor Ben Wible lending a unique helping hand to a school bus having a little trouble along its route.
Bryan Texas Utilities member Debbie Prince captured this shot of Gus, her father-in-law John Prince’s horse, braving winter’s chill on a December 2008 day.	Wood County EC member Rita Matthews sent us this photo of then-2-year-old grandson Keller Haynes enjoying a taste of his first big snow.
Comanche EC member Beverly Harrell captured this male cardinal “chilling out” on her property just outside of Eastland.

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BACKYARD GARDENS is the topic for our MARCH 2010 issue. Send your photo—along with your name, address, daytime phone, co-op affiliation and a brief description—Backyard Gardens, Focus on Texas, 1122 Colorado St., 24th Floor, Austin, TX 78701, before JANUARY 10. A stamped, self-addressed envelope must be included if you want your entry returned (approximately six weeks). Please do not submit irreplaceable photographs—send a copy or duplicate. We regret that Texas Co-op Power cannot be responsible for photos that are lost in the mail or not received by the deadline. Please note that we cannot provide individual critiques of submitted photos. If you use a digital camera, e-mail your highest-resolution images to focus@texas-ec.org or submit on our website at www.texascooppower.com. (If you have questions about your camera’s capabilities and settings, please refer to the operating manual.)

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