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This is Texas. A Modern Texas. What Is A Ranch?


ROFL BOX

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1 hour ago, tejas60 said:

saw one on a hunting lease (not mine) south of Uvalde about 4 years ago. 

neighbor said he saw a pink one that's supposedly rare south of Alpine about 10 years ago. anybody heard of these? he smokes a lot of pot, so I don't know...

It's been about 4 or 5 years for me too. I remember when I was a kid it was nothing to see 50-100 in a day in Pleasanton.

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6 minutes ago, luke duke said:

 


Sounds like a commune, you fucking hippy.

I wish I had a place like that.

Yeah, I'm pretty excited about buying the land. I'm not too excited about building a house though. I've been told by enough people that a timber frame home is going to run in the $250-$300 per sqft range. I'm hoping that I can get a hybrid stick and timber frame done for $175 per sqft. I have expensive taste but I have always been great at getting deals. I have a friend at Hinkley lighting where I can get fixtures at cost and I can get tile at cost and probably would prefer the new wood patterned tile over hardwood and ROFL will build the roof for pennies. 

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24 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Is that why we call them that? I had no idea.

"(TCU) is like a bunch of cockroaches. It's not what they eat and tote off, it's what they fall into and mess up that hurts.”

_Darrel K. Royal
the SWC years

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21 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Yeah, I'm pretty excited about buying the land. I'm not too excited about building a house though. I've been told by enough people that a timber frame home is going to run in the $250-$300 per sqft range. I'm hoping that I can get a hybrid stick and timber frame done for $175 per sqft. I have expensive taste but I have always been great at getting deals. I have a friend at Hinkley lighting where I can get fixtures at cost and I can get tile at cost and probably would prefer the new wood patterned tile over hardwood and ROFL will build the roof for pennies. 

Mrs. CHIEF works for a commercial modular building company, but they have spinoffs that do higher end modular, and I'm sure there are others, maybe even under $100 sq/ft to that area. Might not be exactly what you want, but would save you a buttload.

CHIEF

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Mrs. CHIEF works for a commercial modular building company, but they have spinoffs that do higher end modular, and I'm sure there are others, maybe even under $100 sq/ft to that area. Might not be exactly what you want, but would save you a buttload.

CHIEF

We are going to be looking at modular potentially next year for a very remote location, I’d love a link. We may go with a shipping container solution too.

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10 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

Mrs. CHIEF works for a commercial modular building company, but they have spinoffs that do higher end modular, and I'm sure there are others, maybe even under $100 sq/ft to that area. Might not be exactly what you want, but would save you a buttload.

CHIEF

What company?

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29 minutes ago, troph said:

We are going to be looking at modular potentially next year for a very remote location, I’d love a link. We may go with a shipping container solution too.

One of my best friends did modular at his place in between Freer and Benavides.   It is really nice.  
 

I will ask him the manufacturer and pm you.  

Edited by Johnny Sack
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Please pardon the poor quality of the images.  We saw these about 100 feet apart on the Devil's Hall Trail at Guadalupe Mountains National Park in 2005.  I don't think that I have seen one in the wild since then.  I had never seen one like the bottom one until then, and we saw two on the trail that day.

167018235_SecondHornedToadCropped.jpg.c0132d307150eaad61c4a258d38ba980.jpg144458838_FirstHornedToadCropped.jpg.ddd4dbf4b90476f7cfe66632bc71b499.jpg

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11 hours ago, hullabelew said:

From what the old man says, fire ants and wild hogs are primarily the reason for the decline in horny toads.  Same with the quail population.  Really sad.  

 

As noted, loss of primary food source (harvester ants) due to fire ants and humans. Pesticides also probably play a role, either directly, or by killing of Harvester ants. Also killing by cats. Fire ants and hogs have definitely done a number on ground nesting birds.

 

 

10 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

Sweet little lizards. Flat and docile. Always told they could squirt blood out of their eyes, but I never saw it. They would just sit in your hand - and engage in a staring contest. Sweet little creatures. 

 

 

They do that when they are grabbed suddenly, like by a coyote that is going to eat them. Apparently tastes really really bad so the coyote spits them out. If you are gentle, they won't squirt.

 

8 hours ago, tejas60 said:

saw one on a hunting lease (not mine) south of Uvalde about 4 years ago. 

neighbor said he saw a pink one that's supposedly rare south of Alpine about 10 years ago. anybody heard of these? he smokes a lot of pot, so I don't know...

 

Pink one is probably a variant of the one in the second picture below (roundtail horned lizard), which is a different species, or could even be a third species, Desert Horned Lizard. There are a handful of different species that might be found in west texas. Color can vary quite a bit regionally in reptiles (see snake thread) which makes id-ing based on color difficult.

 

 

1 hour ago, Scheiss Meister said:

Please pardon the poor quality of the images.  We saw these about 100 feet apart on the Devil's Hall Trail at Guadalupe Mountains National Park in 2005.  I don't think that I have seen one in the wild since then.  I had never seen one like the bottom one until then, and we saw two on the trail that day.

167018235_SecondHornedToadCropped.jpg.c0132d307150eaad61c4a258d38ba980.jpg144458838_FirstHornedToadCropped.jpg.ddd4dbf4b90476f7cfe66632bc71b499.jpg

 

bottom pic is a Roundtail horned lizard. Found in western US, including west texas. Different species from the Texas Horned Lizard, which is the top pick and the one that used to be so common in central texas.

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2 hours ago, Scheiss Meister said:

Please pardon the poor quality of the images.  We saw these about 100 feet apart on the Devil's Hall Trail at Guadalupe Mountains National Park in 2005.  I don't think that I have seen one in the wild since then.  I had never seen one like the bottom one until then, and we saw two on the trail that day.

167018235_SecondHornedToadCropped.jpg.c0132d307150eaad61c4a258d38ba980.jpg144458838_FirstHornedToadCropped.jpg.ddd4dbf4b90476f7cfe66632bc71b499.jpg

The last one I saw had an unfortunate encounter with my truck tire in a pasture at my deer lease west of Brady in the late 1980s.  Love those guys, but haven't seen one since.

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9 hours ago, BottleRocket said:

My FIL has a 5-600 acre ranch between Llano and Fredericksburg that goes back two generations. Three if you count my wife. He’s ‘retired’ now and runs about 100 pair cow/calf operation because it’s a passion of his. He leases to hunters which supplement the taxes and other expenses. We call it the ranch but he calls it home.

 

He says that when I show up to help it’s like losing two good men.

 

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There are so many family ranches in Gillespie County that have been broken up in the last 20 (or even 10) years - glad to see it sounds like this one is staying in the family!

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15 hours ago, ROFL BOX said:

"(TCU) is like a bunch of cockroaches. It's not what they eat and tote off, it's what they fall into and mess up that hurts.”

_Darrel K. Royal
the SWC years

I was at that 1961 game too. Damn toad kicked All American Jimmy Saxton in the back of the head as he was getting up after the play was whistled dead. Took him out of the game, and we lost 6-0. Sumbiches

Edited by Armybrat
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On 6/19/2020 at 2:51 PM, ROFL BOX said:

 

 

 

To most back East, the notion of owning even ½ an acre is a vast unmanageable portion of land that would need constant tending, mowing, maintenance, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You should not talk about things you do not know about. As example, I live "back East" and I have an acre and if we move will lilely get something thats two acres. Every lot in my neighborhood is at least an acre, same for the next one. 

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14 hours ago, Bevo said:

What company?

Aries Building Systems. I also have some plans I drew up that uses three shipping containers set up in a "U", sleeps up to 10, and has a hipped roof that covers the whole courtyard. Gonna build that in Southfork, CO in a few years. Can probably build the whole thing for less than 100k.

CHIEF

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And there are fancy prefab ones too. Designs are getting really cool. Not sure what we are going to do but west central Texas or big bend country as a retreat is part of our plan. Prefab, prefab containers or containers and build ourselves are definitely top three ideas.

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2 hours ago, CHIEF said:

Aries Building Systems. I also have some plans I drew up that uses three shipping containers set up in a "U", sleeps up to 10, and has a hipped roof that covers the whole courtyard. Gonna build that in Southfork, CO in a few years. Can probably build the whole thing for less than 100k.

CHIEF

Thanks. Not gonna lie: I had to look it up to know where Troy TX is located.

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26 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Thanks. Not gonna lie: I had to look it up to know where Troy TX is located.

That's where their manufacturing plant is located, they have one in California, and an affiliate in Washington State. Main headquarters are in Arlington, VA.

CHIEF

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3 hours ago, CHIEF said:

Aries Building Systems. I also have some plans I drew up that uses three shipping containers set up in a "U", sleeps up to 10, and has a hipped roof that covers the whole courtyard. Gonna build that in Southfork, CO in a few years. Can probably build the whole thing for less than 100k.

CHIEF

My nephew built this (photo taken during construction) on 5 acres near Leadville with that view of the Arkansas River:

 

 

402FED45-6657-4F24-B82B-B9A14BF5D4FD.jpeg

B9F2D15D-0B54-48E6-8B7E-88C540E372AC.jpeg

Edited by Armybrat
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25 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

That's where their manufacturing plant is located, they have one in California, and an affiliate in Washington State. Main headquarters are in Arlington, VA.

CHIEF

I mistakenly thought the only thing manufactured in Troy was speeding tickets.  Learn something new every day.

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You should not talk about things you do not know about. As example, I live "back East" and I have an acre and if we move will lilely get something thats two acres. Every lot in my neighborhood is at least an acre, same for the next one. 
So where are y'all from, you damned Yankee?

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

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On 6/20/2020 at 12:07 AM, ROFL BOX said:

Paging @Cajun to the Burn Orange courtesy phone... Paging one mister "Cajun" to the Burnt Orange courtesy phone in the baggage claim area... you have a call waiting.

You rang?

 

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Edited by Cajun
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My whole goal when I get back to Texas has been getting a chunk (about 50 acres) of land and make it a small native habitat. I've always wanted to take it down and reseed it with only native grass, then buy some harvester ant queens to populate the area, so I can put horny toads on my property, so they have thier food source.
I'm 32 and still clawing my way out of grad school debt, but this sounds like just the sort of thing I'd like to do when I've saved some coin. Not necessarily horned toads specifically (although that sounds awesome), but some sort of habitat and wildlife restoration, even if at a very small scale. I would be incredibly content spending the second half of my life on a project that never really ends like that.
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On 6/23/2020 at 9:46 PM, workswithseed said:

My whole goal when I get back to Texas has been getting a chunk (about 50 acres) of land and make it a small native habitat. I've always wanted to take it down and reseed it with only native grass, then buy some harvester ant queens to populate the area, so I can put horny toads on my property, so they have thier food source.

That’s what we did on our place, only 24 acres and minus the horny toads.  It was pretty much solid juniper when we bought it.  Slowly and selectively cleared and planted native grass and put in erosion control.

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1 hour ago, hookem2010 said:
On 6/23/2020 at 7:46 PM, workswithseed said:
My whole goal when I get back to Texas has been getting a chunk (about 50 acres) of land and make it a small native habitat. I've always wanted to take it down and reseed it with only native grass, then buy some harvester ant queens to populate the area, so I can put horny toads on my property, so they have thier food source.

Read more  

I'm 32 and still clawing my way out of grad school debt, but this sounds like just the sort of thing I'd like to do when I've saved some coin. Not necessarily horned toads specifically (although that sounds awesome), but some sort of habitat and wildlife restoration, even if at a very small scale. I would be incredibly content spending the second half of my life on a project that never really ends like that.

I'm 27, and I don't get paid too much (by y'alls standard) as I'm only a welder, but when I went to a small community college, I had a professor talk about native grasses and and conserving water. This was after the drought of 2011, and that sparked my interest in it all, and trying to be holistic about the approach. I might never get close to 50 acres, but I want to get damned close. 

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I have 51 acres (bought 35 in 2007 and buying 16 adjacent acres). I go probably 20 times a year (1:45 drive from my home). Honestly it is probably all I can handle in terms of keeping roads good, keeping the mesquite from taking over, and keeping the cedar from taking over. I always have projects going. If I had 200 ac it would either just be field/scrub or I would just not lay eyes on some areas for months and months. 

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5 hours ago, CleverNickname said:

I have 51 acres (bought 35 in 2007 and buying 16 adjacent acres). I go probably 20 times a year (1:45 drive from my home). Honestly it is probably all I can handle in terms of keeping roads good, keeping the mesquite from taking over, and keeping the cedar from taking over. I always have projects going. If I had 200 ac it would either just be field/scrub or I would just not lay eyes on some areas for months and months. 

Speaking of, got any updated pics of the joint?

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I hired a guy to clear cedars last summer. Just gave him an area and said to clear as many as possible. The aftermath is some habitat for some creatures in some cedar piles and we had a small spring fire up for a short time in a draw below the clearing. My plan is to clear 30-40% of the cedar on the ranch. I can easily kill the small ones but may need to get a saw implement to clear faster. Cedars suck.

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22 hours ago, ROFL BOX said:

Speaking of, got any updated pics of the joint?

Going on 10 years the drywall still is not taped and floated and the shower is just a curtain tacked to the cement panel. If it was too nice then the womenfolk would come up more. There is talk of building a shed to move out the tools and crap that we store in the tiny bedroom. Kinda getting tired of the bare concrete, but really with the scorpions I dont like to walk barefoot anyway.

The last couple of years I have taken gallons of Monterey oak acorns from my front yard and planted them Jonny Appleseed style all over the land. This year I actually found a couple that came up and put up a cage before a deer ate em. Still probably will be annihilated in the July/August dry spell.

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