Category Archives: Place
FREE RANGE: FOOD, NATURE, PLACE, AND MORE
South Texas: a fierce and unexpected beauty
Yum! This week has afforded me yet another in a long—seemingly infinite, in fact—series of opportunities to eat crow. Heather and I returned yesterday from a visit to our friends Hugh and Sarah Fitzsimons’ Shape Ranch, outside Carrizo Springs. As … Continue reading
Posted in Place
Tagged birds, bison, eating crow, South Texas, Texas Hill Country, Thunder Heart Bison
1 Comment
A new year at Madroño Ranch: bison harvests, chicken tractors, hog schools, and more
Happy new year! The beginning of the year is always a good time to take stock, so we thought it might be appropriate to look back at what we accomplished—and, erm, failed to accomplish—during the last twelve months. Much remains … Continue reading
Posted in Place
Tagged bison, Boggy Creek Farm, chickens, Dai Due, deer, hunting, Madroño Ranch, visual arts, writing
3 Comments
A holy fool in “the land of the Philistines”
Greeks and Trojans, Christians and Muslims, Jews and Arabs, Serbs and Croats, Tutsis and Hutus—the collision of cultures is rarely, if ever, a pleasant sight. The protracted and bloody war between the Plains Indians, especially the Comanches, and the white … Continue reading
Posted in Place
Tagged Comanches, Jefferson Davis, John R. Baylor, nineteenth century, Robert S. Neighbors, Texas Rangers, violence
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"The Blackest Crime in Texas Warfare"
Our usual route from Austin to Madroño Ranch takes us through Johnson City to Fredericksburg via Highway 290, and then down Highway 16 through Kerrville to the turnoff opposite the Medina Children’s Home. Every time I pass the sign for … Continue reading
“A cup of tea, a warm bath, and a brisk walk”
A path is little more than a habit that comes with knowledge of a place. (Wendell Berry) If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them … Continue reading
Posted in Place
Tagged dogs, Henry David Thoreau, Madroño Ranch, Roaring Fork River, snakes, Texas Hill Country, walking, Wendell Berry
2 Comments
There and back again: a geobiography
We recently led a seminar on Madroño Ranch as part of the annual Summer Literary Festival at Gemini Ink, a writing center in San Antonio. The theme of this year’s festival was “What Would Nature Do?” and in our seminar … Continue reading
Posted in Place
Tagged Annie Dillard, Bay Area, Ellen Davis, Gemini Ink, geobiography, Lewis Hyde, Marin County
2 Comments
Home with the armadillo: a love letter to Texas
Recently we and our three kids went to Martin’s native San Francisco to help celebrate his father’s eighty-fifth birthday. The five of us spent an afternoon walking along the cliffs of Point Reyes National Seashore, where the ground was springy, … Continue reading
Posted in Place
Tagged birds, Colorado, Point Reyes National Seashore, San Antonio, San Francisco, South Texas, Texas Hill Country, Thunder Heart Bison
2 Comments
Madroño’s mythical bison
We spent last weekend at Madroño with Shawn and Susanne Harrington of Asterisk Group, who are designing a visual identity for the ranch suitable for use on business cards, website, food labels, letterhead, gimme caps, T-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, … Continue reading
“You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?”
Funny how things turn out sometimes. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, went to college in Massachusetts, and grew up (to the extent that I grew up at all) with fairly liberal political views. I … Continue reading
Posted in Place
Tagged Bay Area, boots, Dallas Cowboys, England, San Antonio, unreliable Italian cars, Williams College, Yankees
4 Comments
It’s a wonderful town
We recently spent a few days in the Big Apple, and the fact that the only souvenir we brought back was a bag of Nicola potatoes probably tells you all you need to know about us and our priorities. Basically, … Continue reading
Posted in Place
Tagged Central Park, farmers markets, Frederick Law Olmsted, High Line, New York City
2 Comments