The Ranch

I am almost 100% positive that you will be hearing me refer to "the ranch" in future posts. To avoid confusion, I decided to explain to you what exactly "the ranch" is...and what my weekend mostly consisted of.

Kyle's work, PCI, recently purchased a lease down in south Texas.  This basically means that whomever owns this land in south Texas decided to "lease" it out to someone who is willing to pay X amount of dollars per year. If you do pay, the ranch is basically yours for the year. Hunting rights, house maintenance, land, etc. It may sound like a lot of work and kind of silly, but I have heard the amount of requests come through to go "hunting in Texas" and it will be well worth it. For future reference, that is "the ranch" that I will be referring to.

This is the house, and some of the yard at the ranch

So where does this play into my weekend? They recently purchased it, as in, a month or two ago. Since then, there has been one trip down to check out the property, make some "to-do" lists, etc. Guess what was on the "to-do" list? CLEAN. Fill feeders! Dirty work. This past weekend all the "young guys" from the office made the 2 hour trip south to do work on the ranch.

This is the scenery in South Texas. Wonderful, isn't it?!

This is what that scenery looks like up close. Again, how wonderful! HA. Snake books should NOT be apart of my wardrobe.

Kyle and I cleaned. I was sneezing every other minute from the inch of dust that coated the place. I scrubbed years of grease off of the kitchen doors and cabinets. I dusted shelves and furniture. I folded sheets and blankets. Kyle swept floors, all thousand dust bunnies included. He mopped all wood floors, having to change out water consistently due to how dirty it got. We cleaned.

When that was all done, the "other young guys" came back from filling the "back lot" feeders. The ranch is  divided into the back and front, so the front was left to do. Since 2 guys had to head back to San Antonio Kyle and I were put on the truck to help do the front. Filling feeders basically means that you drive around this land and find all the "feeding" spots. You put corn in there. You set a timer. When the timer goes off, animals come to eat. When you want to hunt, you sit 20-100 yards from this feeder and wait for it to go off, luring the animals to you. (This is Texas hunting in a nut shell). So that was hot and dirty and lots of manual labor, but it was ok. I need more of that as I sit behind my computer 40 hours a week.

The 1-ton pickup we used to drive around the ranch with. FULL of corn and protein pellets for the feeders.

Here we are filling feeders! Once it's full of corn, we hoist it back up in the air and set the timer. The corn then shoots all around that gated part. It is gated low enough for deer and other animals to jump, but high enough for the wild hogs to not get in.

Proof that I helped! I even have the sore arms to prove it ;)

After the feeders were done and the house was cleaned, we went to the shooting range on the ranch and shot some clay pigeons. I did, too! I even hit some. Its been YEARS since I shot a gun, so it felt good, actually.

The boys at the shooting range on the ranch. We eventually had to tie up the dogs because they were contastantly running out and searching for the "birds that we shot."

Again! Proof that I shot! Capped it off with a beautiful sunset.

Now that you are knowledgeable in Texas lingo/lifestyle, and know all about "the ranch" I'll leave you to wrap your head around all that I just wrote. Have fun ;)