So…
What’s in Texas? (You may be asking yourself.)
Actually, the two questions that we get most is “Where are you in Texas?” and “How far are you from Chip and Joanna?”
Those are excellent questions as Texas is about as vast as it gets. Waco, (a.k.a. ‘Chip and Joanna’ ) is about two hours away so we only get to see them every other week or so and we usually swap visits. Chip really likes Paula’s meatloaf! As for our location, it takes us two days to leave the state when we work our way to the west. Everyone knows the major cities so saying, We live halfway between Houston and Austin narrows it down a bit. That is all well and good, but if I gave you a map of Texas and asked you to pinpoint those cities…. Would you be able to?
For your perusal pleasure, I am including a map of Texas here for easy reference.
As you can see, El Paso is pretty far away. It is almost 700 miles from us and in a motorhome that translates to about 14 plus hours of driving and where that can be accomplished in one very long day, it is much better to find a place to stop for the night and proceed the next day.
Our little spot in Brenham is perfect for us. We have a concrete pad that we poured right next to the corral at Danny and Kaitie’s place.
Brenham is in the heart of Washington County which is the actual birthplace of Texas. Many moons ago some guys got together at Washington-on-the-Brazos and pissed off the Mexican guys by declaring themselves to be a new nation. It’s nice having the local history so near. We are also in the best place to witness the annual emergence of the famed Bluebonnets. These pretty flowers stay out for about a month in the spring, and they are everywhere! Even the sides of the road are covered, and the Road Crews refrain from mowing the sides and medians of the roads until they have stopped blooming. There are several “favorite” spots along the roads where folks from the city come up to take their family photos in the middle of these gorgeous fields.
As you can see, we’re surrounded by fields and woodlands
Back at the Ranch we help out with the chores when we are there. My favorite thing to do is keep the corral “Raked”. This done by towing a special metal apparatus around it with the tractor or 4-wheel side-by-side. It’s kind of like dragging a chain link fence around. It levels and distributes the piles of manure so that it dries nicely, and this helps alleviate some of the flies. Plus, it looks nice which helps me with my Lawn-Mowing-Experience-Withdrawal because the grass down here not only is not the same as in Jersey, it doesn’t grow as fast because of the drier climate.
Yes, there are flies.
There are also scorpions, and other Texas-sized bugs to be aware of. The howl of the local coyotes is heard nightly and as long as you are not a chicken that forgot to go home for the evening, it sounds kind of nice. We even have wild pigs. These are feral pigs that are descendants of domesticated ones from back in the day. I guess that they wanted their independence from Mexico also. There are over two million of these critters roaming the countryside doing over two billion dollars in agricultural damage annually.
Yes, they are hunted! (and are rather dangerous as they are very ferocious)
We also tackle a few special projects like the Goat Mansion that we built last year. Danny and Kaitie keep adding small parcels of land that are contiguous (or almost contiguous) in order to keep adding to the ranch and keep “others” at bay.
The land gets “manicured”, that is, somewhat cleared but only of unwanted small stuff like cedars. The Live Oak and Post Oak trees are then left to grow nicely without having to compete with the other unwanted species. After a few months, you can’t even tell that they had even been growing there. All the trunks have been pulled, and the ground leveled. It ends up looking very nice.
The large, very expensive, quintessential Texas ranches all have their share of Live and Post Oak trees growing in their fields. They are very prettily shaped trees, and they provide nice, shady spots for the cattle that usually inhabit those ranches. I don’t think that we will see cattle at Danny and Kaitie’s place, just horses, which right now there are four of.
And… they don’t all get along.
There is always a pecking order when it comes to the barnyard and clearing the land so that the corral, et al, can be expanded just makes sense for the well-being of these guys. (Think separating your kids at the dinner table in order to insure a calm eating experience.)
Our “pad” here has water and full 50-amp electric service. The only thing that we need to move for is to dump our holding tanks. This ritual occurs about once a week and it means traveling five miles down the road to the State Park at Lake Somerville. I really don’t mind this as it make us a start everything up and drive it. This is good for all of my mechanical friends that live down below, the motor, transmission, wheel bearings, etc. It is always good to exercise these guys.
So, there is probably a good amount of chores waiting for us when we get back to Texas in a few days. Danny has been on the “Pipeline” (Kansas) for the entire season and Kaitie obviously has the Important Parts of the Critter Keeping to do besides taking care of Maddie and working. But we love a good project so I’m sure that we’ll be ready to dive right in as soon as we return!
Well, it has been two full days of traveling hundreds and hundreds of miles and we have yet to see any of those pesky little ‘Check Engine’ lights come on. We communicated with the boys in Houston (Campbell’s Freightliner in Lafayette) yesterday and they were happy about that news! They have yet to accept any payment from us for this until we’re absolutely sure that the issue is resolved. As I write this we are safely parked in my cousin Mari’s driveway just outside of Atlanta. These are the folks that I haven’t seen since the middle 1800’s. We had a great night last night as her kids and my other cousins (Mari’s brother and sister, who have passed) kids came over to meet us.
We’re really glad that we ‘detoured’ and made our way down here. Never underestimate the power of a family get-together!