The Village of Benbrook

This was taken by Sergeant C. P. Devos of the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 or 1918. Benbrook was a training camp during World War I. There are more old Benbrook pictures from Deseronto Archives on flickr.

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Benbrook is Better than Fort Worth is Better than Dallas

I got a nice e-mail from Zillow this morning.

According to the latest Zillow Real Estate Market Reports, home values in Benbrook increased 20.0% in the first quarter of 2009, compared to the first quarter of 2008. Nationally, home values decreased 14.2% during this same period.

Downright amazing for a recession! I clicked through to their market report and saw this (warm is up, cool is down). It’s very interesting to me that every city on the Fort Worth side saw appreciation while every city on the Dallas side saw a loss. And guess which city of all saw the biggest gain? Yep, Benbrook!

I have high hopes for Benbrook. If all goes well during the next five years we’ll have a redesigned main boulevard with landscaping and utilities underground (standard in California but rare here) and some “big box” stores. I also just read in the paper that they are building 10 - 35 acre ranch estates on the south shore of Benbrook Lake. That’s not technically in Benbrook (it’s nowhere) but I think having bazillionaires nearby helps with all things.

There’s also Benbrook Town Center (to my San Diego people, think Otay Ranch Town Center with Dutch architecture) but I don’t think this is possible until the economy is doing really well again. It sure would be cool though.

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Home Storm Chasers II (Video)

We captured enough footage on one day last week to make a whole sequel to Home Storm Chasers. Here it is.

Home Storm Chasers II: 96 Degree Day with Golf Ball Hail and Lightning Striking a Rainbow

Also watch Lightning Storm Video. It shows more of the lightning in slow motion.

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Lightning Storm Video

Here’s the evening lightning storm footage I mentioned earlier. The second half is in slow motion. I’ll post another video tomorrow showing a rainbow, hail and part of the neighbor’s roof flying away. It was a day of sweet footage!

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Latest Thunderstorm Shots

Here are thunderstorm pictures from late May. The dark sky shots were from a storm that barely clipped us. Amazingly it hardly sprinkled. The later pictures are from the 96 degree day with golf ball size hail and lightning striking a rainbow that I wrote about here. I was so lucky to get that lightning shot. Thank you Sudi-Pie for finding the rainbow or I would have missed both.

Later on in the evening we saw near-continuous horizontal lightning very far away. I took a gig of video. This weekend I’ll edit that to show the lightning branching out in slow motion. I think there will be 3 or 4 really cool sequences.

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Vegetable Garden Update

Here are some pictures we took about a week ago. Just try to imagine everything a little bigger. The sunflowers are about half way up the fence as of now. A couple are starting to grow flowers (I think) and the biggest one will probably be near the top of the fence in a week or two. Our radishes are ready, we have about 30 tomatoes, the cucumbers are flowering and some of the peppers are starting to show up. The green onions don’t grow as fast as I thought they would but they are thickening up. Homegrown radishes are spicer than the store bought ones.

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The Day After Yesterday

I surveyed the wind and hail damage from yesterday. We only lost two tomatoes out of about 30 and possibly one sunflower out of about 20, but I’m seeing if its half-severed trunk will fuse back together. The others had their leaves pierced and a few were ripped off, but I’m sure they’ll be standing straight and tall again after a week of sunshine like last time. A periodic hail storm might even be a good thing. It sort of showed me which leaves to thin out and also provided some good soft organic matter for our compost bin.

I found our heavy-duty back doormat flipped over 10 feet away along with a sandwich bag and a tin foil dispenser. We didn’t lose any shingles and the pansies (they’re supposed to be dead by this time anyway) have again proven absolutely indestructible. Not too shabby!

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Golf Ball Hail and Lightning Piercing a Rainbow

Today was 96 degrees. We were driving home when we saw this very small storm on the horizon in the afternoon. We weren’t sure it would get to us but it sure did! It got very windy (we saw some shingles flying across the sky) then it started dropping hail. We had a few pieces of quarter sized hail then ONE golf ball sized piece of hail dropped all by itself. I ran out and grabbed it because it’s the biggest we’ve seen yet and who knows if we’ll see anything like that again.

After the hail, Sudi saw a rainbow pop up, so I went out side to video it. I was lucky enough to also capture a cloud to ground lightning strike that crossed the rainbow! WOOHOO! What a day… I love weather, man.

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We’re Home Storm Chasers

Spring is really exciting in North Texas. Wildflowers pop up, nights become warm enough to sleep with windows open, and cold dry air from the Rockies collide with warm humid air from the Gulf. That creates severe thunderstorms just about every week here in the southern tip of Tornado Alley. I’m talking loud thunder, big hail, wind that eats signs and, in isolated areas, more rain in one day than San Diego gets in one year! You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a dark green sky (that means get the horses inside now).

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Benbrook Wildflowers

We have a variety of wildflowers at this time of year. Here are a few that I picked in a field at the end of our street for Sudi during a bike ride (well, technically not while I was riding). Pretty, huh? There’s a bluebonnet, two buttercups and I don’t know what the others are called. The background is our garage wall. We painted it a sort of cappuccino color. It makes a great patio with all of our folding lawn chairs from the 70’s.

Also check out my Pretty Flowers set on flickr. I put every flower picture I’ve ever taken into it.

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