Things you should know about San Antonio

Before you come to San Antonio for a visit you should know a couple of things.  First you need to know that grass is for show here.  It is not the kind of grass that you run barefoot in unless you have feet like my dad.  The grass has thick leaves and is pretty ridged, not remotely soft.  The worst part though is not the grass but what lives in the grass.  Some places in Texas have problems with chiggers but we have Fire Ants. These little beauties are aptly named for when they bit you the inject flaming venom into your body, or so it feels.  After you have been bitten you have about two ours before a white headed pustule forms.  For the first 24 hours it doesn't matter how many times you pop it it will just reform.  The next day they become very itchy raised red masses similar to mosquito bites x 100.   

The other day I was out in the yard fixing some of the slats in the fence.  I made the mistake of standing in one place for more than a minute and before I knew what was happening my leg began to burn.  I looked down and my foot and lower leg were covered in ants.  Luckily I had pants on but many found their way to my skin and began chewing mercilessly on it.  The top picture is about two hours after the incident and the second picture is two days later.  Pretty awesome.  Consider yourselves warned.

Another thing you should know is that San Antonio sits atop an enormous limestone shelf.  This shelf makes it virtually impossible to dig a hole in your yard or to plant a garden without raised beds.  You have to carve your way through the limestone to do pretty much anything.  The picture above is at our local Target.  In order to flatten out the hilltop to build a parking lot they had to carve out the limestone shelf.  It is not uncommon to see thing like this extending 15 feet into the air with Oak trees growing out of them