The Townie

Know the backroads. Use the front door.

Monday We Remembered. Now Summer Begins.

Monday we remembered. Now summer begins.

Dear neighbors,

There is a strange little turn that happens after Memorial Day.

On Monday, the flags are out. The cemeteries are tended. Somebody is standing in the heat with a hand over their heart, thinking about a name carved into stone and a family that learned how to keep going with an empty chair at the table. It is solemn and necessary work, remembering. It asks something of us.

Then Tuesday comes along with sunscreen on its hands.

The kids are out of school. The first real summer heat settles over the pasture. The porch light stays on later. Somebody's truck smells like river towels, sunscreen, and a sack of drive-through burgers. The grasshoppers start acting like they own the place. The calendar does not give us a long pause between grief and ordinary life. It rarely does. It just turns the page and asks us to carry what matters into whatever comes next.

I have been thinking about that this week: how getting back to the work of living can be its own kind of honoring.

Not forgetting. Not rushing past the weight of the day. Just understanding that the people we remember did not give what they gave so we could stand still forever. They gave it so kids could get out of school and run barefoot through sprinkler water. So grandmothers could save folding chairs for the parade. So somebody could open the shop on the Square, answer the phone at the river outfitter, mend the fence with a neighbor, and make supper with the good tomatoes.

This week's Townie is about that turn.

It is about the start of Hill Country summer: the events filling the calendar, the river season kicking on, the businesses adjusting their hours, the families figuring out how to make the slow months and the busy months both work. It is about Junction's river outfitters, who make a whole year in about a hundred days and know better than anybody that when the season arrives, you meet it ready.

There is wisdom in that. Show up while the light lasts. Tell people when you're open. Check the water before you launch. Bring the cooler, but take your trash home. Rest when you can. Work when it's time. Remember what Monday meant, then let Tuesday teach you how to keep living.

With love and a little sunscreen,

The Two Insights Your Business Needs Right Now

Insight #1: Summer Hours, Summer Rules — Adjusting Operations Without Losing Revenue

Every Hill Country business owner reaches the same fork around now: the days are long, the help is thin, the customers are either everywhere or nowhere depending on what you sell, and the schedule you've kept since February no longer fits the season. The instinct is to either grind through on the same hours or throw up a "summer hours" sign and hope nobody minds. Both are guesses. Summer deserves better than a guess.

Here's the reframe: summer hours aren't a retreat. They're a reallocation. The question isn't "how do I stay open less without losing money" — it's "when does my customer actually show up in July, and am I open then?" For a café in Mason, that might mean opening earlier and closing through the dead heat of mid-afternoon, because nobody's buying a hot lunch at 2 p.m. when it's ninety-nine degrees. For a shop in Fredericksburg, it might mean staying open later on weekend evenings when visitors stroll Main after dinner. For a service business, it might mean front-loading the workday to beat the heat and protect your crew. The hours that made sense in January are almost certainly wrong for June.

The operators who lose money in summer are usually the ones who change their hours quietly and hope customers figure it out. The ones who win treat a schedule change like the announcement it is. Post it on the door, on Facebook, and on Google — that last one matters more than people think, because an outdated Google listing sends a customer to your competitor before they ever leave the house. Then tell your regulars to their faces.

One more thing the seasonal pros know: decide your summer hours now, communicate them once and clearly, and hold them. Customers forgive a business that's reliably closed on Mondays. They don't forgive a business whose hours are a mystery. Consistency is a form of hospitality.

Insight #2: Cash Flow in the Slow Season (For the Businesses That Aren't Tourism-Facing)

Not every Hill Country business gets a summer surge. For every river outfitter and winery riding the seasonal wave, there's an accountant, a feed store, a mechanic, a print shop, or a clinic whose summer looks like everyone's-on-vacation and whose revenue quietly sags from June through August. If that's you, the good news is that slow seasons are survivable. The harder news is that most small businesses run thinner on cushion than they think.

The number worth sitting with comes from the JPMorgan Chase Institute, which analyzed the daily cash flows of roughly 600,000 small businesses. The median small business holds just 27 days of cash buffer — meaning if the money stopped coming in tomorrow, the typical small business could cover less than a month of expenses before running dry. Twenty-seven days. That's not a failure of management; it's the structural reality of running lean. But it means a predictable summer dip can become a genuine squeeze for anyone who didn't see it coming.

The broader Texas picture is steady but not booming, which makes that cushion matter more. The Dallas Fed's Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey showed general business activity still in mildly negative territory through April 2026 — an index of -9.9, improved from -13.3 in March — with revenues ticking up modestly. Translation: demand is holding, costs are up, and there's no statewide tailwind coming to bail out a soft August. The service sector is roughly three-quarters of the Texas private economy, so this is the water most local businesses are swimming in.

So what do you do with a slow season you can see coming? Three things, none of them glamorous. First, map your cash, not just your profit — know which weeks are thin, and how thin in actual dollars, before they arrive. Second, build the buffer in the good months on purpose; the best time to set aside a summer cushion was April, but the second-best time is this week. Third, line up your dry-season work now — the maintenance, the planning, the customer outreach, the books you've been avoiding. A slow season isn't lost time. It's the only stretch some businesses get to work on the business instead of in it.

The tourism-facing folks make their year in a hundred days. Everybody else makes it by not running out of road in the eighty days when the phone goes quiet.

A Small Townie Takeaway

Summer sorts Hill Country businesses into two camps: the ones racing to capture a season and the ones trying to outlast one. The river outfitter and the feed store look like opposites, but they're solving the same problem from different ends — both are managing a year that doesn't arrive in even monthly installments. The answer is the same for both: know your rhythm, plan for it on purpose, and tell your customers the truth about when you're open and ready. Seasonality isn't the enemy. Pretending it isn't there is.

The Townie Business Circle goes deeper on slow-season cash planning, seasonal staffing math, and the operations playbook for a Hill Country summer. Real strategy. Real local context. $10/month. Join the Business Circle →

What's Happening This Week & Beyond

Events, news, weather, ag, and the rest of what's moving across the Hill Country.

On the calendar

Community notes

Hill Country Weather

NWS Austin/San Antonio's May 27 forecast discussion calls for widespread, potentially heavy rain Tuesday into Wednesday, a drying trend Thursday-Friday, and additional rain chances next weekend. Look for highs in the low-to-mid 80s, overnight lows near 68-70, and no active watches, warnings, or advisories in the EWX area as of issuance.

Rural Policy & Funding Watch

Texas Rural Funders continues pushing rural broadband through its "Boosting Broadband with E-Rate" toolkit for small libraries and schools, a meaningful lever for whitelist towns whose libraries anchor digital access. Regionally, the Hill Country Alliance flagged updated drought-contingency triggers at area groundwater districts and water utilities. Statewide, the Texas Water Development Board's WUTAP technical-assistance program is helping small water systems prepare before applying for state financial assistance.

Economic & Small Business Intel

Producers Livestock Auction in San Angelo reported calves and yearlings near steady with continued strong demand on all classes at its May 21 sale, while slaughter cows sold fully $1-$2 higher. Main streets in Llano, Mason, and Fredericksburg report steady June bookings around rodeo and festival dates, while small operators still feel labor tightness as wages in Kerrville and the Austin metro pull workers north and east.

Agriculture & Livestock Notes

Per U.S. Drought Monitor GIS data, 64.5% of Texas was in active drought on May 12, with D2 covering 28.7% of the state and D3 covering 13.3%. USDA's May 26 Agricultural Weather Highlights noted stormy weather in western Texas, with fresh soil moisture benefiting rangeland, pastures, and newly planted summer crops. Fire danger has eased with recent rain, though pastures remain stressed in dry pockets.

Market Snapshot

Producers Livestock Auction in San Angelo moved 505 head of cattle May 21, with better-quality 400-600 lb steers at $375-$525/cwt and 600-800 lb steers at $325-$435/cwt. Slaughter cows brought $145-$179, cow/calf pairs ran $3,500-$4,000, and the May 19 sheep/goat sale moved 7,900 head with slaughter lambs and kid goats lower week-over-week.

Grant Watch

St. David's Foundation's "Catalyzing Community-Led Change" closes May 30, 2026 for eligible Central Texas nonprofits, useful for regional partners even though it sits outside most Townie counties. Texas Mutual's Working Texans Economic Opportunity Grant Cycle #1 closed May 15; watch Texas Rural Funders' Grants Hub for Cycle #2. Texas Rural Communities small grants remain open with a November 1 deadline for arts, community development, and education projects.

Tourism Pulse

Hill Country visitor flow is shifting upriver. Castell General Store on the Llano River continues to draw weekend crowds for events and kayak access, and the Llano Chamber is leaning into the rodeo-weekend bump expected June 5-6. Fredericksburg's MusikFest debut and TexasCellos Fredericksburg Music Festival signal a deliberate shoulder-season pull toward summer cultural tourism.

All listings verified and current for the May 28, 2026 edition.

The Summer People: How Junction's River Outfitters Make a Whole Year in a Hundred Days

How Junction river outfitters make a whole year in a hundred days.

There's a stretch of spring-fed water about six miles south of Junction where, right about now, the phones start to ring. Somebody in Dallas wants to know if the river's running. A family from San Antonio needs four tubes and a shuttle for Saturday. A group the outfitter can hear in the background wants to know how many kayaks they can fit and whether the water's cold. The answer to that last one is always the same, and it's the whole reason any of this works: yes, gloriously, it's spring-fed.

The South Llano River is one of the cleanest, most reliable rivers in Texas, fed by springs that keep it cool and running even when the rest of the Hill Country is praying for rain. It rises out of the ground south of town, flows north to meet the North Llano at the city park just below the dam, and the two become the Main Llano, which rolls east across the county and eventually empties into the Colorado. For most of the year it's a quiet, gorgeous thing — herons, cypress, the occasional fly fisherman standing thigh-deep at dawn. And then Memorial Day passes, school lets out, the first real heat arrives, and the river becomes the engine of Junction's summer.

The businesses that run on that engine are practical, proud, and deeply local. They are families with a van, a trailer full of boats, a stretch of riverbank, and a phone number painted on a sign. South Llano River Canoes & Kayaks has been dropping people off and picking them back up for years, six miles south of town off Highway 377. Tony and Nina Boone run Tony's Kayaks just up the road at 315 US Highway 377 South — leave a message, the sign says, and we'll get back to you, and they do. The Bloody Bucket rents kayaks, canoes, tubes, and paddle boats out of a spot on Main Street a few blocks from Schreiner Park. Paddler's Porch, out on Flatrock Lane, bills itself — simply and accurately — as a complete river outfitter. The Korner Store rents tubes two blocks from Flatrock Crossing. Each one has its own way of getting people to the water and back again. All of them are about to have the busiest hundred days of their year.

This is the thing people misunderstand about a seasonal business. From the outside it looks like easy money: sun's out, tubes out, take the cash. From the inside it's a sprint with a hard deadline on both ends. A river outfitter in Junction does not have twelve months to make a living. It has roughly the stretch from Memorial Day to Labor Day, plus the shoulders, to earn the bulk of a year's income. Every sunny Saturday is not just a good day; it is an irreplaceable one. A rained-out holiday weekend doesn't get rescheduled. The water levels — which they'll tell you to check on the USGS gauge before you ever load a tube — can turn a perfect plan into a "call us next week." They are running a business whose inventory is the weather and whose best customer is a family that booked yesterday.

What they're selling, technically, is a logistics problem solved. You don't rent a kayak so much as you rent the ride back to your car. The genius of the outfitter model is the shuttle: they meet you, haul your boats, drop you upriver, and are waiting downriver when you drift in sunburned and happy four hours later. It's a deceptively simple service that requires knowing the river cold — where the good put-ins are, how long a float actually takes (a tube takes at least twice as long as a canoe, they'll warn you, and they're right), which crossings sit on private land, and when the water's running too high to be smart. That knowledge isn't on a website. It lives in the people who've watched this particular river for decades.

And that's the part worth slowing down for. The reason Junction has a cluster of small outfitters instead of one big franchise is the same reason the Folk Festival is on a ranch and not in a stadium: some things only work at the scale of people who actually know the place. The South Llano River State Park sits just upstream — pecan-bottom land famous as one of the most important wild turkey roosts in the region and a birding destination serious enough that people plan whole trips around it. The river the outfitters make their living on is the same river the state is protecting, the same one the town grew up around, the same one where Junction kids learn to swim and Junction teenagers learn to flirt and Junction grandparents go to sit in a lawn chair in the shallows and refuse to be bothered. The outfitters aren't selling a commodity. They're selling supervised access to the best thing about where they live.

There's a lesson in here for any Hill Country business staring down a season that makes or breaks the year. The outfitters don't fight their seasonality; they organize their whole operation around it. They stock up before the rush. They answer the phone in May. They know the customer who has a great float this July is the one who books a cabin next July and tells four families in San Antonio to do the same. The river does the marketing. The outfitter just has to be ready, be honest about the water, and be there at the take-out when the float is done.

Monday we stood in cemeteries and remembered people who didn't come home. It's a heavy, necessary thing — and then the calendar does what the calendar does and turns to Tuesday. The river outfitters of Junction are the other half of that turn: the getting-back-to-the-work-of-living part. By the time you read this, somebody south of town has already loaded a trailer, checked the gauge, and pointed a van full of strangers toward the cool, clear, spring-fed water that's been waiting all year for exactly this. Summer in the Hill Country doesn't arrive with a ceremony. It arrives with a shuttle.

If you've never floated the South Llano, this is the season to try. Call ahead — peak summer books up. Bring water, sunscreen, and a trash bag, and take out what you bring in. Check the gauge at tx.usgs.gov before you go. And tip the person who hauled your boats. Their year is short, and they're glad you came.

When Your Neighbor’s Fence Is Your Problem Too

Boundaries, shared spaces, and summer proximity.

This week's topic: When your neighbor's fence is your problem too — boundaries, shared spaces, and summer proximity.

Dear Hazel Mae & Fern,

The fence between me and my neighbor is falling down on his side. Now his dog comes through, his goats got into my garden once, and his junk is starting to drift my way too. He's a nice enough man and I don't want a feud — small town, I'll see him at the gas station forever. But it's summer, we're both outside all the time, and I'm losing my patience. Whose fence is it even? And how do I say something without starting something?

— Fenced In, in Mason

Hazel Mae says:

Well now, sugar, here's the good news: you already know the hardest part — you'd rather keep the neighbor than win the fight. Hold onto that. It'll steer you right.

The plain truth about whose fence it is: in Texas, unless a deed or written agreement says otherwise, a fence on the property line generally belongs to both of you. The repair is a shared problem, not a him problem. So don't march over with a grievance — walk over with a plan. Take him a little something (a foil-covered plate never hurt a fence negotiation in the history of Mason County) and say it friendly: "Our fence is taking a beating. Can we sort out the goats and split a couple of T-posts?" You're on the same team against the fence, not each other.

Get your property line straight first — your appraisal district map or survey shows where it runs. Put what you agree on in a text. And handle it now, while it's a leaning fence and not a flattened garden.

Fern says:

Robert Frost gets quoted to death here — good fences make good neighbors — but people forget he wrote it to argue with the idea, not for it.

A fence isn't about keeping the other person out. It's about both of you knowing where the kindness lives. A clear boundary is a gift you give a relationship: it tells each of you what's yours to tend, so the caring doesn't curdle into resentment. The goats in your garden aren't a character flaw — just a boundary that quietly stopped being clear.

Summer puts everyone outside at once — more chances to be annoyed, more chances to be neighborly. Mend the fence gently and you mend more than the fence — you rebuild the line that lets you wave at the gas station for years.

Got a question for Hazel Mae & Fern? Send it in. hey@thetownie.ai

What the Heat Reveals

The heat does not lie. It strips away what has been hiding.

The heat doesn't lie. It strips away what you've been hiding — even from yourself.

Aries (Mar 21 – Apr 19)

The heat reveals you've been running hot on purpose to avoid sitting still. This week, the sun calls your bluff. Slow down before something forces you to. What you find in the stillness isn't weakness — it's the next move.

Taurus (Apr 20 – May 20)

The heat reveals what you've been carrying that isn't yours. Like a too-heavy quilt in June, set it down. You'll be amazed how much cooler the room gets the moment you stop insisting you don't mind the weight.

Gemini (May 21 – Jun 20)

The heat reveals your restlessness for what it really is: a question you keep changing the subject to avoid. Happy birthday season, twin. Let the long evenings sit you down. The answer's been waiting under all that motion.

Cancer (Jun 21 – Jul 22)

The heat reveals who actually shows up when the porch lights come on. Notice who's there in the cool of the evening, not just the bright of the day. Tend those people. Let the fair-weather ones drift.

Leo (Jul 23 – Aug 22)

The heat reveals you don't have to perform to be loved — a hard truth for a sign that runs on applause. This week, somebody loves you in the shade, quietly, with no audience. Let that count. Let it be enough.

Virgo (Aug 23 – Sep 22)

The heat reveals the thing you've been "fine" about isn't fine. You can't organize your way out of this one, and that's okay. Say the true thing out loud. Clarity is its own kind of cool water.

Libra (Sep 23 – Oct 22)

The heat reveals which side of the fence you actually want to be on — you've been straddling it to keep everyone happy. The sun's too bright for that this week. Choose. The relief of deciding outweighs the fear of it.

Scorpio (Oct 23 – Nov 21)

The heat reveals what you already knew in the dark. No surprises here — just confirmation, hot and undeniable. You've been waiting for permission to admit it. Consider this your permission. The truth was never the danger; the hiding was.

Sagittarius (Nov 22 – Dec 21)

The heat reveals that the open road you keep dreaming about is a way of not being here. Nothing wrong with a trip. But the thing you're running toward might be sitting on your own porch, sweating it out beside you.

Capricorn (Dec 22 – Jan 19)

The heat reveals you've been mistaking endurance for living. You can take the hard weather — everyone knows that by now. This week, the question isn't whether you can suffer it. It's whether you're letting yourself enjoy anything at all.

Aquarius (Jan 20 – Feb 18)

The heat reveals the distance you keep is colder than you let on. You call it independence. This week, somebody gets close enough to feel the chill. Let them in a little. Even you don't have to weather summer alone.

Pisces (Feb 19 – Mar 20)

The heat reveals the feeling you've been swimming away from has finally caught the current and found you. Don't go under. Float. Pisces, you feel everything first and deepest — this week, let what surfaces simply be true, and let it pass through.

Until next week — drink your water, find your shade, and don't be afraid of what the long light shows you.

Still Here: Rhea

A young, friendly girl at Second Chance Mason who is ready for playtime, snuggles, and her person.

🐾 Pet of the Week: Rhea

📧 Email: adoptions@secondchancemason.com <br>📞 Phone: 325-347-6929 <br>🏥 Rescue: Second Chance Mason Animal Rescue

Rhea is still waiting for her person, and this week she brought a little proof of what Second Chance has been saying all along: this girl loves people. She does great with one of the rescue's junior volunteers, and from the look of things, he might be pretty fond of her too.

Rhea is about 11 months old, young and full of energy, but eager to please. She has had all of her vet work completed: she is spayed, fully vaccinated, and heartworm negative. She is friendly, outgoing, and good with kids — the kind of dog who is ready for playtime, attention, and then a belly-up tummy rub as soon as someone slows down long enough to offer one.

An active home would be a wonderful fit for Rhea. She is a larger dog with plenty of play in her, but she is not all go-go-go. She is also happy to snuggle, settle in close, and be somebody's good girl. If you are looking for a bigger companion who can run, play, learn, and then curl up beside you at the end of the day, call Second Chance at 325-347-6929 or email adoptions@secondchancemason.com to learn more about fostering or adopting Rhea.

Photo provided by Second Chance Mason Animal Rescue.

Rhea's AI Translation: If She Were Human...

If Rhea were human, she would be the sunny 11-year-old who shows up to summer camp already wearing sneakers, already holding the kickball, already asking if anybody wants to race. She would be brave enough to make the first friend, sweet enough to check on the shy kid, and absolutely convinced that the best part of any day is when somebody scratches her back and says, "Good job, girl." She is not complicated. She wants movement, praise, a soft place to land, and a person who means it when they say she belongs.