Why does the chicken cross the road?

There should be a great joke here! This chicken (rooster, we think) has adopted us after he escaped from the rodeo some weeks ago. We are putting out food for him, but he is happier as a free-range rooster and does actually roost in our treeline out by the gate. Ginger has not discovered him yet :) We have named him "Rodeo" for obvious reasons. Rodeo is our first official farm animal!

We have been very busy (and tired!) pulling out trash these last weeks. We had a 40 yard trash container delivered and are filling it up gradually. We try not to think how angry it makes us to see what people have so carelessly done to the land. But dump sites are very common on ranches, sometimes to correct erosion issues and sometimes just because they can. We are sure this property lay unused for years with open access from the hardtop road, and either people got permission to dump or did it anyway. Some folks just bury it but we would like to get it out of here! And eventually we will dig out a second pond in that area for the cattle.

We also bought 30 shade trees from a tree farm that was liquidating its inventory. We got 10 live oak, 10 chinese pistachio, 5 burr oak and 5 red oak. All of these, except the live oak will have great color changes and grow into 40 - 50 foot shade trees. The live oak stays green all year and in the spring, the new leaves simply push the old leaves off. All these trees are drought tolerant and will do well in our soils. I need new batteries for the camera, so I'll post a picture of the trees tomorrow.

We will travel into Dallas today to meet with the kitchen designer and the folks from the Ft. Worth Brick and Tile Company. They have the saltillo tile we will be putting through most of the house. We'll get their estimate today after they look at the houseplans. Our builder has the final plans now and is coming up with the budget for construction. We are making decisions now about the windows, doors, flooring, fixtures etc. It's hard to sleep at night imagining all these different elements. I could do this forever! (And sometimes it seems like we have been!)

The Rodeo Club is having a miniature bull riding contest on the 21st - will try to include some more pictures.

More later! Vaya con Dios!