Lizards and Watermelons in Texas

It’s 105-degrees on the back fence of The Clanton Hacienda, according to the analog thermometer that’s hanging from a loose nail on the weathered fence.
I believe it.
It’s hot.

There are usually a pair of yearling lizards basking on a wire enclosure for the family mascot. They’re missing this afternoon, otherwise they’d be baking instead of basking.

The siblings are less than two inches long, and if they survive the coming winter, and don’t get crushed in the backdoor slamming, they’ll make a fine addition to the family of Brown Caribbean Anoles that have adopted my back yard.

An article in Texas Monthly a few years back reported the browns were chasing out the green variety of Anoles. The greens have taken the high road, however, and are now residing in nearby trees and bushes. My resident clan of browns can be seen peering out from between the weep holes in the brick walls of my house. In the shade.

There is one good antidote for the Texas heat in July, and that’s a chilled Texas watermelon, fresh of the truck. (My cousin, Sue, treated me to a dandy over the weekend, buying one for each of us. Mine hibernated in the “back refrigerator,” along with assorted soft drinks and bottles of drinking water, for which the temperature control is set to icy slush. I sliced it up and set the chunks in a giant Tupperware bowl—what I didn’t eat while I was carving.)

You know a watermelon is going to be good when you set the knife in the rinds, and the melon opens along its natural fissures in the meat. The red is a tempting complement to the stripped-green outer shell, especially when it’s nearly the same temperature as tundra. This one was obviously one of Wharton County’s finest for the season.

We bought the melons from a father and son at the traffic light in Boling, Texas. FM 447 intersects FM 1301 at that light—the only one in town. There’s a fine pecan orchard just to the north of where Caney Creek languishes under the asphalt, one of many in the region famous for nuts.  I’m pretty certain that watermelon was picked that very morning, because of the way it naturally gave up its goodness when the first slice was made.

I traveled to the Holy Land with my father a few years back, and the one thing that impressed me most—besides trodding in the footsteps of The Savior—was the amazingly fresh food we ate at every meal. Farm to table in a matter of days, if not hours.

We’ve got that in Texas, too—those pecans that fall after the first frost in November, and that delicious, crisp and sweet Wharton County watermelon.
That’s a slice of heaven.