Riding Shotgun Through the Pastures

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Pecan Grove San Gabriel (Click on the link to the left to see a photo from the ranch.)
SOUTH OF THE SAN GABRIEL RIVER — It is a glorious spring morning for a ride through the pastures, two dogs flanking the pickup as my acquaintance drives slowly down the dry ruts to show me the place that her father bought in the mid-1940s, just under 200 acres as I recall. The wind seems to blow constantly this time of year in Central Texas. Wildfires are a constant danger as the drought continues. There is plenty of grass left on this farm, because she sold off all but nine of her cows after the brutal summer of 2011. But without more rain, she said, even this much grass will barely be enough to get nine cows through the winter.

The land is flat blackland for many miles both east and north of this piece of property. From a high spot, I can see where the flatland begins. But rolling hills and bluffs dominate this property. It is a good thing we are in a four-wheel drive truck as we make our way down to the banks of the San Gabriel. At this point, it is narrow enough to easily swim across. The dogs both walk in to the bottom of their bellies for a refresher. The bluffs that demonstrate how high the river flows at times are at least 30 feet above.

An orchard of native pecan trees graces another piece of the land. They are gnarled and magnificent, still producing bountiful crops most years, she says. Their trunks and bare branches are a sight to behold, reaching for the sky, a red-tailed hawk sailing above. Old-timers say spring isn’t officially here until the pecan trees bud, that one best not plant tomatoes and other frost-fragile plants until the pecan trees have spoken. That has not yet occurred and probably won’t until right after Easter. I am holding off on planting ours until next week, even if our crop consists os a few plants in containers out on the deck.

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I have spent many hours riding in pickups in pastures, looki

ng around, the bulk of it in East Texas, of course, since that is where I have mainly lived. The ranch proprietor ostensibly has a purpose — checking fences, looking for cows gone astray or about to calve, seeing what damage the feral hogs have done since the last time it was checked. But the trip is the main point. There is something soothing and peaceful about slowly riding along in a pickup through a pasture, especially with someone who knows the land and can point out landmarks I would have surely missed. My driver on this trip stops and shows me a stone outcropping, about five feet round. It has a bowl-shaped indentation. Native-Americans used it to pound maize and other grains into paste, she said. On this morning, the wind had blown grass seeds and pollen into the bowl, ghost vestiges of those long-gone natives. It is easy to imagine the camps set up along the high ridge, where the natives could see for miles in all directions in case the Comanches decided to show up.

Once in West Texas, on a ranch that literally went on for miles, a friend showed me a wide swath of gravel going up a hill. This is tough cattle country, where it’s one cow for 50 acres during  good times. “That’s the original Highway 290,” he said. The new highway was about 20 miles away. Those are the stories I love to hear when riding in the trucks of friends and acquaintances over the years — pulling calves in the middle of the night, busting up a beaver dam by staying up in the wee hours to catch the little buggers at their nefarious work. I enjoy ranching by osmosis, I have decided, after having made a few feeble attempts on my own at raising cows. If I ever do it again, it will strictly be a couple of Longhorns as pets, maybe a donkey and a couple of goats. Just enough to be entertained without losing much money.

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We complete the circle of the property, the dogs still leading the way. At least they like to think so.  The sky has turned gray with rolling black clouds off to the north and west. Maybe it will rain here later. I hope so, but likely it won’t. I get in my car to head back to East Texas.

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