Hill Country - was Re: [thechat] Joel's Ireland photos, round 1 of 367

[Bob Davis]

On Feb 17, 2005, at 1:03 PM, Luther, Ron wrote:

> Bob Davis noted:
>
>>> Heather and I just went hiking here :
> http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/hillcoun/
>>> Bandera is a cool area.
>
> Hi Bob,
> Wow!  Cool Park!
>

It is a cool park. With all of the rain we had recently, it was fun to 
track different animals footprints in the dirt. Fox, raccoon, deer, 
cattle, horses, birds, etc, etc. There's a lot of wildlife out there! 
We saw some nice fish too - the water comes out of the aquifer, so it's 
crystal clear.


> Mary has said good things about Bandera. I haven't been over there yet.
> We head up through Kerrville and Fredericksburg about once a year or
> more to 'climb the rock' and hit the microbrewery. We also run through
> Georgetown and Salado about twice a year. (Although we usually stay 
> down
> in Round Rock.)
>

Kerrville is nice. There are a number of cool little towns around 
there. Heather has family there, so we go there often. There's a nice 
hospital too - which is what scares me most about being way out. I see 
every chainsaw or hatchet accident I've ever seen and think about how 
far away I am from a hospital... scary!


>>> I'd love to have a big chunk of land out there - 50 or 100 acres 
>>> would
>
>>> suffice. Some day... some day....
>
> I dunno ... Mary and I have talked about that a few times. My original
> idea was for some kind of 'personal sporting resort' ... get a 50 acre
> square ... trim back a small area right in the middle - put the house
> there, maybe a small pond stocked with bass, a deck for the grill and
> the hottub, maybe mow a small pair or triangle of 'Par 3's - throw a
> couple small dirt bikes or four wheelers in a shed for the 'kids' to
> whack around on ... and let the rest go wild, cuz I don't want to spend
> all my time on upkeep.
>
> That sounded good ... until ...
>
> ... Mary started plotting ways to claim the 'agricultural exemption'!
>

Listen to her - she's smart.

> (Now, to be fair, you really _have_ to do that ... in order to lower
> your property taxes with that much land ... it's a very smart move.)
>
> I haven't been able to find any 'definitive' information yet, but this
> seems to 'steer' you into needing to throw some cattle on your land.
> Which means you now need some equipment; pens, trailers, a larger 
> truck,
>

5 geese will do it, from what I hear. A couple goats are fine too - and 
they keep the grass managed. Hell, buy a few russian hogs and let them 
loose - let hunters come and get them for a small fee (along with the 
deer - in the hill country leases are *expensive*!).

> a tractor, a barn, probably some horses and dogs ... and everything 
> that
> goes with that ...
>

I'd have dogs anyway, don't know how much other than a truck you'd 
really need for goats. You could probably hire people to manage the 
'once a year' kind of stuff like grading roads and such.

> At which point it started to sound waaaaay too much like 'work'. Even 
> if
>
> I were retired, I don't think I want to spend my weekends mucking out
> stalls, mending fencing, and attending cattle auctions.
>

don't do cattle - I know someone who raises sheep, and it looks pretty 
easy. Keep the fences going, and the coyote population in check and it 
doesn't seem too much like work.

> (Hmmmm ... then again ... if you throw on a "cattle guard" ... maybe
> your Elise _would_ make a fair to middlin' "cutting horse"!)
>

A Lotus Elise with a cattle guard? Now that'd be something to see. I 
have seen Mercedes wagons with them - mostly for opening bump-gates I 
think.

bob