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The largest colony of Mexican free- tailed bats in Texas is located at Bracken Cave, in Central Texas. The Bat Conservation International owns the cave. As stewards of the cave and its colony, BCI is responsible for ensuring that development doesn't encroach on the natural landscape of the cave.

The pups will roost sepreate from the females, and the males roost in small groups in a different locale. Are the males absent fathers, then? Strictly speaking, I'd say yes. They don't take any role in...

Y'all are killing me, here! KILLING MEE!!! I was hoping to find several videos of bat colonies on the Texas Parks and Wildlife You Tube channel.  Alas, there weren't as many as I'd hoped.  

Still, I found a great video taken at the Houston Zoo. Houston never faiils to come in for me when it matters.  Enjoy this look at a colony, and remember- you can see bats in the wild at the Waugh Avenue Bat Colony. 

Thank you, Houston Zoo. Y'all rock! 

Wondering what Tea Slack is all about?  One of the original state agencies in Texas covers public library services, records managment, archival services and services for the vision impaired.  

That's a quick introduction to what TSLAC (or Tea Slack) does for the state of Texas.  Let the staff tell you more. Get to know the resources and help available here:

Part II:

Reservations are recommended, but it's a great place to wander in and take a look.  

Because not all bats want to live in Central Texas. Some of them prefer the Gulf. And many bats love being in the center of the city. Take the Waugh Bridge bat colony for example. The bats live in the crevices of the bridge year round, and the best time to see them is in the Summer.

Given how temperate it is in Houston, you can really see them emerge year round, so don't feel bad if you're in town for an "off" season. In fact, while the colony on Waugh is the largest, there are smaller...

Mostly write tickets.I kid! I kid! In addition to doing their darndest to keep Texas' natural resources safe and flourishing, they also serve as peace officers within the state of Texas. Taking Flight takes a look at the wildlife protection and law enforcement aspects of a warden's job, but in reality, the game wardens fulfill several roles.

• Education
• Boating Safety
• Water rescue
• Hunter safety
• Disaster response
• State park maintenence
• Public safety
• Law enforcement

You can follow a real warden...

I'd love to say it's because we have so many people in Harris County, but the truth is we loved the older one so much that we decided to keep it. Even when we built a new one.

Every time I walk to the starting line at the Houston Marathon, the older courthouse comes into view. I wave and yell out "Hey, Girl!" to it. The other runners think I'm waving to a spectator, but that beauty is my home girl. She's historic and pretty.

And everybody says we just knock down old stuff in Houston...

As Olivia works to celebrate the Mexican community in Verde County, the Texas Historical Commision (THC) has compiled a list of resources for exploring Hispanic heritage across Texas. The collection includes videos, an interactive map (for an unforgettable road trip) and lesson plans.

The details in the Verde County Courthouse may be fictional, but THC has a video on Hispanic architecture in Texas. Staying in the actual Hill Country, the agency's compiled a list of little known Hispanic sites...

It's taken longer than anyone had planned or hoped, but Fisk Univeristy's online collections of the Rosenwald Schools that spanned 15 southern states is now available to the public.

I wanted to place a Rosenwald school in Madison, since Texas was one of the states that received funding from Julius Rosenwald to build schools for African- American communities in rural areas of the state. The Texas Historical Commission has resources for finding (and listing) schools in Texas, and other state...

Learn about protecting historical structures from the nation's museum system. 

Photo credit: 

Andrew Kim may be a figment of my own imagination, but Preservation Architects do exist. Listen along as an architect describes his path towards a career in prserving and restoring the past.

How do you become a preservation architect? Without calling in the sponsered ads, I'll give you a quick tour of programs available here in Texas:

The University of Houston offers a Masters of Science in Architecture with a concentration in Historic Preservation. Actually, I didn't know that until today...

Some counties in Texas use their renovations to help adjust with the times. When I started sketching out what Verde County and Madison would look like, I wanted to portray a small town with potential, not one that time and progress had sped by. Still, when money gets passed out, the facilities are sometimes the last things to receive much needed attention.

Some courthouses in smaller, more rural counties had no hot water. Others were decades behind when it came to technology. It's hard to...

Taken from the Texas Association of Counties (TAC) podcast.

My County Commissioners are a mixed bag of local Texans.  Commissioner Santos is the most vocal of the Verde County Commissioners.  In real life things aren't always that acrimonious.  I do love using poetic license, and at least you don't have to worry if any Open Records laws were voilated.

Meet the Verde County Commissioners Court here. 

The Texas Historical Commission regularly hands out multiple grants, and when they do it makes news.

The program is now over twenty- five years old, signed into law in 1999. Since then, a majority of the historic buildings across the state that are eligible for the grant have already applied for or received funding. I've personally sat in the room stuffed with County Judges and County Commissioners and heard their stories about the process. I can tell you from experience that the process was...

Most of the people involved are still living.

In order to receive a grant from the Texas Historical Commission (THC),

To participate in the THCPP and be eligible to receive grant funding, a project must meet the following criteria:

• A building that serves or has served as a county courthouse
• A building that is over 50 years old or is certified as worthy of preservation
• A building that has a current master plan approved by the THC. View approved master plans (PDF).

The master plan is where...

The process is long and expensive, but it's worth it in the end. Mason County's courthouse was in the midst of renovation when an arsonist targeted the building. See, really bad things happen sometimes during a renovation.

In Mason County's case, they had already engaged engineering and preservation experts to start their renovation. The prep turned out to be fortuitous when the building burned down in 2021. Court records, which are a crucial part of restoration, had already been removed by...

The first part of the long renovation process starts with assessing the damage.

In Verde County's case, if there was damage to the building, Andrew Kim would be called in to consult with engineers to do an assessment. Having the largest workspace available for a county's government out of commission means that the staff and services would have to be moved to temporary quarters. Many counties have their emergency services located in a courthouse building, and that could lead to nightmares in...

The Texas Courthouse resoration program has been going strong for over twenty years. But sometimes the restoration kicks off with loss or even tragedy.

Follow along as one Texas County starts their journey with loss.

In my Restoring Madison series, the long suffering people of Verde County encounter obstacle after obstacle as they work to restore their own courthouse. Personally, I didn't go with arson as a challenge, but there are any number of factors...

With no training whatsoever thanks to my horrible former employer. I cried like a baby when I got to Washington Avenue because I knew I could make it the entire way if I kept going at my slow pace.

Then I had to sober up because I worried if the officials saw me crying they'd worry I was injured and I'd get pulled from the course anyway.

Pics to follow:

Truth be told, The Texas Historical Comission, (or THC, or "the Hysterical Commission) has been doing this "help you get your (court)house in order" thing for a while.  In my Restoring Madison, TX series, however, our fictional Verde County is just going through the hoops to get the funding from the state.

I put those poor people through the wringer because it's fiction, but the actual program features slightly less drama.

New year, new genre.

Welcome to Madison, Texas—where restoration reveals truth

You've just discovered the Restoring Madison, TX series—women's fiction set in a small Texas town where a courthouse restoration project becomes the catalyst for personal and community transformation.

Each book follows a different woman whose story intersects with a phase of the preservation project. An innkeeper confronting gentrification. A county clerk trapped by family legacy. A real estate agent watching her...