The Spicewood Experience

We will miss our community mentor, Johnnie Bindseil.  He saw value in our recording sessions and kept the "welcome to our community" spirit always open.  He wanted to keep Spicewood's history alive and its stories available for us and for the young ones.  Johnnie was one of the good ones.  We will never see the Community Center without thinking of you!  Thank you!

This episode runs a little longer than usual but we are sure you will find it interesting!  Amy and Keith Everitt kindly and gently enlightened us about the venomous snakes in our area and what to expect if we see them.  And yes, we saw them for the first time in 15 years on our property!  Two rattlesnakes! Are you safer and more secure in an urban setting?  Are there methods to keep them away? Gl...

Have you seen or heard one?  Is there more that one can do other than panic or pee from fright?  There is a lot of information on mountain lions (aka: puma, catamount, panther) on the internet but we wanted a more definitive guide on the subject, so we asked a biologist from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to weigh in. Erin Weyland shared her thoughts on that and on some of the local critt...

Pet funeral directors, Scott and Tony, guided us through the final steps in giving our pup Ginger a warm and dignified farewell. We hope that our loss and this interview helps you with understanding how to approach the options and decisions that are available for pets in our area.

Reintroducing our show and thanking a listener!

Brittany and Jay give us a virtual tour of their facility and how they work to give struggling pups a chance to find their forever home.

This is the next best thing to chatting with the pups.  The ladies give us details and background on their charges.

We round out our chat with the ladies.

Our nurse practitioner is followed up by the project's director and a local client who is a recipient of the study's ambitions.  Gail and I had asked for an update on the study being made of the Spicewood residents who most need the social services.

How many of us know about this sweet museum right in our midst? We began with a private docent-led tour and finished with a group of nearly a dozen other citizens of all ages and country-wide origins.  We all enjoyed spirited history telling of our local settlers and we continued on to learn about the geology of the area and how it impacted the building of the state capitol! Add on the paleontolog...

 This might make you either want to go back to elementary school or be a parent of a child at Spicewood Elementary!  We chat with principal Kara Gasaway and assistant principal Tiffany Brantley about the great innovative programs, their staff, and some of the daily highlights that make their days happy for the young ones! They mention many October events including the annual Trunk-or-Treat and how...

Volunteer Coordinator Lisa Baker and Education Connection Executive Director Amy Wilke chat with us about the importance of helping young people to read to get ahead.  Their reach into 14 school districts speaks to the importance and recognition of educators to this program.  The adage of "Reading is Fundamental" is crystal clear when one understands the need is greater before a child re...

We had the honor and pleasure to visit with Dortha Bittle, who is 102 and Spicewood's oldest resident, and with Doris Phillips, 95, and Spicewood's oldest teacher.  They attended school at our 2-room schoolhouse (now the Community Center). We did not have enough time to record their wonderful stories of early life and hope we return soon to learn even more.  Did you know early Spicewood...

This is our thank you episode and we chat about our guests and recap of their stories.  Also, we tested a remote power source for future episodes. (The test was a success!)  We tried to mention everyone who chatted with us and their contributions to our community.    Thanks everyone!  Now that you know about us, we think that our next episodes are exactly what you need to get a better picture our...

Whether at the barber shop, church, or amongst neighbors, weather is always on our minds.  But do we have a real reason for the Spicewood Split?  Is global warming a real thing?  Are groundhogs going to be outsourced by artificial intelligence? Kristine Kjolhede manages to keep our anxieties low and expectations high for our local cloud-gazing community.  It was fun to tap into her professional ex...

Eudora Welty has nothing on the stories and legacy of Wayne, our Spicewood Post Office Sr Clerk.  He was happy to spend an hour with us and graciously offered stories of early goings on at the PO, Spicewood, and his long family history.  You will smile and appreciate his knowledge of local and family history. I apologize for the glitches here and there that were a result of the unnecessarily quick...

This is brief episode may summarize the anxiety between the podcasters (Frank) and the attendees at the Homecoming event.  Truly, the event was wonderful and the interviews presented were exactly what we needed.  We just needed more of them! Thank you, Curtis, Sophia, Kennedy, Nick and Nathan and Yaya Kennedy!  The time passed too quickly and we hope to see and hear from you again!

This is a report of the annual event.  It is a celebration of the legacy by citizens of Spicewood as they relate over a hundred years of family history.  The families gather to bbq all night and bring their favorite side dishes for all to enjoy. The Community Center is originally a one-room schoolhouse that has been renovated and hosts many Spicewood events but this one brings all the original fou...

We think that this center exceeds all expectations our citizenry may have for a trauma-related event.  It serves four counties and cooperates with other facilities and counties in our state.  You and I can be proud to support their services.  Their thrift store also amazed us and has the dual purpose of adding funds to the center and supporting the victims and families back on their feet.  As with...

Here we go.  We've had meetings and angst and disillusion, but how did we get there?  Given our community's independent nature, is there a path forward or do we let our lifestyle get swallowed up by industry and development?  We chat about the history of Save Our Springs (SOS) and why it was unsuccessful and where its premise worked elsewhere. 

Mary Ruwart vists our studio to give us information on the Trap Neuter Release (TNR) program in Llano and Burnet Counties.  We had a suggestion from one of our listeners to cover this organization after hearing about the dog program earlier. 

Brittany joins us at our home studio to give us an overview of one of the local animal shelters.  We had a great chat that went everywhere and still brought it home.  We are blessed with people who care about these special pups.

A community is only as healthy as its people.  So how healthy are we? How healthy can we be together? Hear how nurse-led innovation is delivering human to human care in our community.

Our library is alive and well and has a much wider array of resources than you may have thought.  It certainly surprised us and Beth Cottingham provides us with the history and development of the library services.

Is this how we sound?  (smiling here).  This is the launch episode of our podcast channel!  Thanks for listening!