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.