Shadow R Ranch Introduction

Shadow R Ranch

When I think of all the fun I have had making this place, I just have to share it. I purchased this land with no fences and no roads back in 2007. Since then it has been a love affair. With cattle, with the soil, with building projects, with procurement, procurement, procurement!

What you see out here now are four dwellings: my house, the Cabin, the Lodge, the Shelter Out Back, and a few deer stands. The 260 acres is about 1/2 cultivatable pastureland and about 1/2 hardwood forest. Flatland and wooded rolling hills. About 2008 I fell upon a rocky area with no trees that were just magical. I lived in Waxahachie in those days but wanted to be out there on that rock outcropping, soaking up the sights and sounds of the wildlife.

I erected a large miner's tent that I bought at an antique store. Inside I installed a Persian rug, a four-poster bed, a wood stove, and a chandelier. I made it my hideaway...until hot Texas sunburned holes through it.
At that point, I knew I had to build.

I hired a talented and foolish craftsman who owned a sawmill to build

me a cabin. He was talented enough to do it all from stem to stern. He was foolish enough to think when he got done, we’d be done. The bunkhouse followed, then a man-cave up by the road for hot summers, a couple of barns for the horses and ever-growing stable of equipment, an extension of my man-cave to fit the womenfolk, and finally, in 2018, the Lodge.

In short, I love to build and to create and then to share with my friends. Here we go!!

I want to share the Ranch and all the beautiful things that nature has created. It gives me great opportunities to meditate and to focus on a number of my other creative passions, including poetry and my music.