So many people in Texas want their own Texas ranch. Yet it’s a paradox how the all-too familiar forces of growth and industry and energy change the landscape and still, we think we’re immune from the force of numbers.

We have this idea in our head that nothing will change in Texas, that Texas will remain ranch and farms and cattle and cotton with oil derricks in the distance, and most of us want our own ranch and horses and boots and that the only change will be when we get our own ranch and horses and cattle and crops and a few oil derricks dotting the cotton fields

We possess the illogical notion that while we always hear about the water tables falling, that will never change and we’ll never hear that the water’s gone.

We try to ignore the increasing pressure on our minds from the population, which doubled from 1950s 7.7 million to 2000’s 20 million and then to 25 million in 2010.  Despite people and more people and more people,  those of us from Texas families of six and seven generations  feel rural though the vast majority live in cities.  Though we wonder at how long it’s been since we saw a tumbleweed blow down Main Street, we don’t make the connection.

We still want our little ranch and cattle and cotton, though we remember when Houston was the size of Austin now.   We want our ranch though we remember when the road from Dallas-Fort Worth to San Antonio was rural with vast stretches of crops and livestock and not chopped up with development.  We remember when Dallas and Fort Worth were two distinct cities, yet still don’t adjust our desire to have a ranch of our own.  

We want to walk out of the house and not see another house in sight, walk over to the stable and saddle up with an old worn saddle  with our name and brand tooled in dark leather, and ride easily to where nothing built by humans can’t be seen, or heard.