Pied Beauty Ranch

 


Pied Beauty Ranch is near Lago Vista, a mile from Lake Travis.We live here with two paint horses, two longhorns, one white donkey (Zoe), two potbelled pigs, three dogs, three cats, deer, jack rabbits, cottontails, foxes, raccoons, possums, coyotes, ringtails, skunks, armadillos, road runners, red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, barn owls, turkey buzzards, black buzzards, wild turkeys,mockingbirds, windhovers, cardinals, scrub jays, titmice, painted buntings, chickadees, finches, meadowlarks, killdeer, lark sparrows, white-winged doves, mourning doves, phoebes, Harris sparrows, ladder-backed woodpeckers, chuck-will's-widows, scissortails,chameleons, lizards, butterflies, grasshoppers, and the spirits of many creatures who have gone before us, including our beloved dog Honey, pictured here in the background. Both steers and both horses are burnt orange and white (the school colors) and one dog and both cats are as close to those colors as possible. These are also the colors of the longhornmobile.

 

The name of our little "ranch" is "Pied Beauty," the title of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. His nature poetry is a chief inspiration for my interest in nature writing. Another is the ancient ideal of the peaceable kingdom.


 

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