Just under 10 years ago my wife and I spent an agonizing weekend. We made ourselves physically ill. We worried, we contemplated, we doubted, and we dreamed. We were deciding whether or not to take the plunge and buy a piece of property in the country. We knew there would have to be sacrifices made. Those sacrifices might cause us some hardship later. We wondered if we were committed enough to accept these unknown events and work through them.
That decision was as it should be; it was hard. Paying for this little piece of God’s earth would be even harder. We weren’t afraid of hard work, nor were we afraid of giving up in order to get a payout at a later time. The instant gratification mentality exhibited by people who believe they are entitled to everything right now is not something we subscribe to. Things that come easy never have as much value as those things that take investment and hard work. If you want a glaring example ask a car dealer about the shape most leased cars are in versus cars that are owned.
My wife and I have been blessed with courage. It’s not something a lot of people have. We aren’t timid people. 
We’ve moved halfway across the country leaving everything we knew, and all of our support systems, behind. We’ve sailed the open waters of the ocean in boats over a decade and a half old. We’ve launched businesses from an idea on a scrap of paper.
We couldn’t afford it, but we had a dream and the courage to pursue it.
I grew up in the Midwest and the Northeast. Texas; I never thought I’d say it, but I really love it here. I love the geographical variety of this state. You can have breakfast in the 4th largest city in the country and enjoy a picnic lunch in country so remote that large predatory cougars are the top of the food chain.
The Stacy Ranch is an odd shaped piece of property 125 miles from Dallas, 125 miles from Houston, and yes, 125+ miles from Austin.
It’s easy to dive right in and start changing a piece of land to suit your needs but we spent a bit of time thinking about our long term dreams and visions. We’ve drawn an imaginary line across the property where it makes the turn. The “Front 40” is ours. We’ve domesticated some portions of it. We mow parts of it. There are benches in a variety of places, a barn, and a home site. We’ve run water lines totaling over a mile in length. The vineyard was planted 9 years ago. If a tree comes down most of the time it ends up as firewood. There are gates and fences, faucets and fixtures, along with cultured stone and roads. The Front 40 belongs to man.
The Back 40 is a different story. No electricity, no graveled roads, no structures. When the earth shook from the oak tree with an 8 foot diameter trunk crashing to the ground 5 years ago it stayed right there. No firewood pile for this fallen giant, now it is a refuge for the snakes, rodents, and rabbits that call its cover home. It’s a good feeling when you’re walking through a nicely manicured city park with the sun on your shoulders. The claustrophobic feelings of office buildings disappear and you can enjoy some time outside. It’s nice. Our ranch is far enough out that the Back 40 is still a wild place. When the sun is on your shoulders and you’re strolling through the meadow, or walking the path wandering across the back forest, you know you’re out. Not outside; out. Out of the circle of man’s touch. I like it there but I’m never in my element. The back half of the ranch is not for man, it is God’s, it is wild.
I don’t hear very well any longer but I still have a pretty good nose. There is a smell at the ranch. It is slightly musty, organic, and perhaps dusty. There is sweetness to it not unlike the smell of new mown hay. Unfamiliar to those accustomed to the city. Pleasant? Yes. 
It reminds me of my younger days. Days filled with the smells of horses, the scents of leather bridles and gloves, and the aromas of distant farmer’s fields brought in by the summer breezes. I think smell has always been a powerful sense for me. I drive my wife crazy, although she loves me too much to say anything about it, with my passion for leather. I must have 10 pairs of leather gloves, 3 or 4 leather briefcases, jackets and sweaters with leather patches, all because I love the smell. Her perfume and skin is an intoxicating aroma that has stirred me from my sleep more times than I care to admit. All of my sportscars are set to run just a little rich. Why? Well first it’s better to run rich than lean, but also because I love the pungent, carbon rich, smell of unburned fuel emitting from the tailpipes.
In the past I’ve gone a year or two without feeling any passion for the ranch but it always comes back. It comes back in memories, dreams, and hopes. She’s always there in all of them.
My memories remind me of her strength and toughness when 
the vision of her raising the walls of our barn return. How can she be so pretty and elegant yet be so tough? I laugh when I remember the time she jumped out of the truck, no fear, ready to take on a 1 ton Texas Longhorn bull and the bull, figuring he’d been bested, ran from the fury. I sigh and smile when I remember the day she curled up next to me and took a nap under the big tree which overhangs the pond, its big limbs providing cooling shade on a warm summer’s day.
In those dreams she’s always there. Her femininity shines as I see her in a pretty sundress and hat going for a walk with me. Her delicate hand tucked safely in mine. I bask in the boundless expanse of her love as I envision her watchin
g over her grandchildren as they romp across her land playing some made up game on a future afternoon. The dreams are so real I can actually hear the crickets over by the pond, I feel the warm summer evening breeze across my face, and I can see the firelight glinting from her eyes as I sit across the table from her enjoying a dinner under the vast expanse of the Milky Way.
My hopes are that I can somehow be anywhere close to the man she sees me as. That I can manage and maintain the ranch in a way that God will smile upon. That I’ll have the opportunity to live these dreams with her for many years to come.
The values for ranch property in Texas have changed in ways that most Wall Street brokers could only hope to match. If we couldn’t afford it back then we definitely couldn’t afford it now. We had the courage. It was hard at times and we doubted ourselves. We did it together, the two of us as one united front.
We had a dream.
But some dreams must die.
Our dream is about to go away.
In 5 months, 2 weeks, and 6 days the mortgage on the Stacy Ranch will be paid in full. We will close the back cover and dream the dream of buying a ranch no more for as Mother promised you as she tucked you into bed……some dreams do come true.
I hope to stumble upon some sense of normalcy, some place where things just make sense. Rejuvenation of the soul and finding something real is the goal.
I find mys
Outside of Winchester I always draw a sigh and my heart goes quiet for a second as I come upon a scene. At the top of a hill is a steel statue of a horse and a cowboy on his knees, hat in hand. He’s kneeling in front of a cross. Respect and faith; nothing more needs to be said.
There is an area in the foothills of West Central Texas that always makes me smile and then launch into a belly laugh. It’s the place where on a spring afternoon I took a picture of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen while she was sitting in a field of Texas wildflowers. 
The Colorado River wanders in and out of view as I begin to enter the Lost Pines area. Loblolly pine trees that live here are separated by over 80 miles from their nearest relatives in East Texas. The legend is Native-American runners carried seedlings from East Texas to comfort a homesick girl who married into a Central Texas tribe. Botanists say they are left over from glacier activity. 