Trip down the river road

For Columbus day, my husband decided to take a day off and go on a road trip. Huge! So we piled in the Ford flatbed and overloaded on sugary drinks and processed food and away we went down to Presidio for lunch and then followed the river road (that river being the Rio Grande) down to Lajitas and Terilingua and then back up through Alpine.

Presidio was the same as it's been for hundreds of years - hot. We had a great lunch at a Mexican restaurant - not unusual for the Mexican border. The ride from Presidio to Terlingua takes along time, but it's even longer when you have three small children, three car seats, diaper bag, camera bag and snacks crammed into a truck with a not so great air conditioner.

We enjoyed the scenery from Presidio to Lajitas. It's a great time of year down here, not too hot or cold. The mountains are beautiful along the river and I wish now I'd taken more pictures. Here are some...

In the pens with a camera

Recently, we worked cattle and shipped calves.  Let me clarify this by saying I did not work cattle - I cooked.  Contrary to popular belief, most ranches don't use chuckwagons anymore.  Most ranches don't have cattle drives, stay out for days on end, or have their cowboys sleep under the stars and sing to each other.  Some larger ranches do, but for the most part, small family owned ranches like my husband's family's ranch just hire guys for a day or two during the fall or spring. 

I have a lot of girlfriends that that make great hands and are better help than alot of men, but I am not one of them.  It's very hard work and I would get in the way or get somebody hurt.  I am not a very good cowgirl.  I am just fine with my role as the event caterer and my husband loves to have real food for the men to eat and not just burritos served on the tailgate of the truck

The guys are used to me hanging around with my camera.  I'm no Bob Moorehouse, but I enjoy trying to capture our life in a sincere, moving way. 

My son is old enough now to start helping his Dad on horseback.  He's so excited!  It's wonderful to see him follow in his father's footsteps, and his grandfather's, and great and great great grandfather's.  That doesn't mean he's off the hook for med school, but I hope he is proud of the ranching tradition.  My mother in law's family has been on this land almost 130 years.

Next year, it will be my oldest daughter's turn to help.  I'm not sure how much help she will be unless we buy her a pink horse and let her wear her tiara, but at least she can try.  One of the many things I love about my husband is how involved he is with his children.  He spends every free moment with one of his children and he takes the girls with him as much as he does his son.  But that day the girls were purely spectators.



I'm taking a Challenge!

Are you up for it? I am taking the Homemaker’s Challenge (link: http://tinyurl.com/2a9ma3m). It is fun for the homemaking, cooking, baking, wife, simple living mom, organizing, decorating, money saving, fashionista, and blogging “expert” in all of us!

Who is Eating My Cats?

Nothing beats having a good kid dog.  We are lucky to have the sweetest, dumber than a rock puppy named Diego who loves nothing in the world than following my little children.  He would do anything for them I know it.  Diego was getting a little lonely because our sixteen year old Aussie died last fall (more on that later) and he needed some company so he would quit running off to the headquarters to play with the blue tick hound so we bought him a girlfriend.  She is precious.  She is a red Australian Shepherd with beautiful green eyes and we named her Chispa, which means 'spark' in spanish. (or so I've been told b/c I don't speak spanish....yet).  But deep down, I am a cat person.  If I'm ever left alone to my own devices in my old age I will be the hometown 'catlady'. 

Unfortunately, now my cats are disappearing or I guess have officially disappeared.   These are not house cats so don't pull out the tissue yet and I was the only who even knew their names.  They were recycled versions of four generations of barn cats without a barn.  They lived in the pasture, underneath the broken down jeep or in my garden.  They wouldn't let me tame them or pet them unless they were in labor with kittens.  Isn't that weird?  I fed them everyday, much to the chagrin of my husband who thought I was ruining them.  I tried to explain that there wasn't much more ruining you could do because if you can't love on them and talk baby talk to them or buy them sparkly collars, they were pretty much useless to me.  I'm not even sure they hunted or kept away the snakes.  I guess we'll find now out won't we?  Because they're all gone.

The evidence was left in the middle of the dirt road going up to our house.  Daisy had met a bad end but made a coyotes dinner.  Tom disappeared entirely.  Bob was run over and left her kittens underneath a catclaw bush for me to try my luck with.  I can't even begin to tempt them up to the house.  I hear a big owl at night trying to find them as well.  So now this is exactly what I need.  I go out every night with my flashlight and a bowl of cat food and try my best to get these kittens out of the catclaw so they will eat and not be eaten.  As if I don't have enough to worry about.

Sewing together your past

One of the many things that kept me busy this summer was trying to finish up the genealogy projects I started a year or so ago. I am from a long line of history nerds so when I got bit by the genealogy bug it became almost an obsession. Seriously, it’s almost what we Christians call a ‘stronghold’. I don’t fit the typical demographic for this hobby, so most of the people I can share this addiction with are over fifty years old. I call it my old people sport. We trade emails and secrets and mutually feel sorry for our neglected family members who barely tolerate our habits. I’ve met some really neat people through this hobby.


Unfortunately, my research is limited to what I can find on the internet. It would be nice to travel around the U.S. looking for documents and taking pictures of old headstones, but as of now I have to rely on the research that others have done. I was surprised at the massive amount of information that is readily available online.

I originally started my husband and my combined family tree so that someday my three small children would know their family history. My husband’s maternal tree was relatively easy because he comes from a well documented and historically interesting old Texas family. Through Ancestry.com I was able to piece together his history relatively quickly. However, there were huge missing links in my own tree and his paternal family tree, some of which I may never find. It goes with being rural, migratory and poor. It’s very discouraging to not be able to find the missing pieces of the puzzle.

This is what it’s like for African Americans who try to sew together the fabric of their history. Most of us, if we know what we’re doing, can trace our family tree back to the early 1700’s or earlier. African Americans can barely trace their families back to the late 1800’s, if that. While slavery existed Africans and mulattos were listed only as first names on ledgers of inventory, not allowed to marry, attend churches and not documented when they died. It didn’t get much better during Reconstruction, especially in the southern states. What little information came by way of Census records in the later years of the nineteenth century. That is while oral family history is so important to African American researchers.

While on my family search I had the misfortune of viewing many, many family documents online which list slave ledgers, wills and estate documents of my family. This was invaluable for my family research as far as documenting names and dates of my family members, but it was a cruel reminder that I am a by product of a slave holding legacy. And as one who is interested in African American history and the origins of slavery, it is ironic and painful for me that one of the progenitors of my American family was a man who brought the first Africans to the New World.

I realize that I am not responsible for the sins of my forefathers any more than I’m responsible for the transgressions of my parents or grandparents, but it was lesson for me. What does it mean to be an American? I think all of us carry the collective history of our forefathers. None of really know who we are. So as much as we think we are one color or nationality, we can always be surprised and educated by our past.

My search for my ancestors made me both sad and proud to be American. For me it meant that I am the slave and the slave owner, the Native American and the Indian Scout, the pilgrim and the unwanted immigrant, the land owner and the sharecropper, the sinner and the circuit riding preacher, a culmination of the hope and tragedy of the history of the New World. I am an American. My tapestry is colorful, torn, ragged and valuable and whether we are black, Hispanic, Asian, Indian or Anglo we can all say the same of the garments we carry.

The summer that lasted a day

It really went by so quickly, didn't it?  In April I was planting my garden and now in August I've woken up and summer is gone. 

The garden really took over my life this summer and unfortunately, I didn't have much to show for it.  My tomatoes didn't produce and I had a weird fungus get almost everything else.  I missed the pataya cactus and algerita berries and it looks like I'll miss the prickly pear as well.  I have nothing to put up for the winter.  The reasons for disastrous crop failing is another post in of itself.

Most of the summer I spent nursing my three children through a mysterious intestinal illness.  I can't begin to recall how many diapers I changed or how many times a day I was wiping someone hiney.  (your welcome for the visual).  Now we all have a summer cold and/or allergies to broom weed.

The ranch is going to host destination weddings and corporate events in the future and so I have also been very busy getting ready for that.  We have a new website:  http://www.theranchoescondido.com/.  The owners have done a lot of landscaping, put in a pool and various other projects.  Hopefully we will be up and running next summer.  I am very excited about the prospect of being an event planner again.

We survived another year at Bloys Campmeeting (more of that in a later post).  That went by too fast as well.  By the time I unloaded our stuff at the cabin it was time to pack it all up again.  In fact, it took me longer to get ready for it than the time I was actually there.

I am working like mad trying to buy books for the school year and implement some kind of schedule.  My kids have been left to their own devices so long that they're looking at me like I'm crazy when I try to get back to some sort of structure. 

We will start the school year next week.  It might be very painful.

Garden time in the desert

You have to really want to grow your own food to plant a vegetable garden where I live.  In the last three weeks I have begun the process of preparing our garden for planting.  It's taken that long time to dig, till and remove all the rocks from our existing garden spot.  Then we have to haul in more dirt, buy amended soil from the store and dig the rows for the plants.  By the time I've done all this, I've spent more energy and money then it would cost of I'd just bought the vegetables at the store. 

That being said, I will hopefully reap the rewards of our garden when we pick the first tomato and eat our first ear of corn.  Yes, I planted corn again even though it never grows well and I eventually have to rip it all out to make room for other plants.  I am determined to grow my own corn, though because it is so much better out of your own garden.  Another bonus to having a garden is that my kids seem to have a greater appreciation for vegetables and food in general.

So if I can get rid of the cactus, lechigulla, and don't end up being a rock farmer in two weeks I should have the start of a beautiful relationship with food.