April Album II: tu y yo

 

Our Texas adventure led us to my grandparents’ ranch in Kenedy, “tu y yo”, about an hour and a half outside of San Antonio.  Kenedy has always been a quiet, humble little town of around 3000 people.  My granny used to say it wasn’t rich enough for two “n’s”.  They’ve owned this ranch since the year I was born, and it used to hold around 20 cattle and my Aunt Boots’ horses.  In the past ten years or so, my grandfather stopped keeping cattle and his sister bought her own ranch in Pleasanton for her horses, so the ranch has been dedicated to hay production - until most recently.  The introduction of a new technology called “fracking” has allowed oil and natural gas extraction from the shale that covers most of this area in South Texas up to parts of North Dakota, including Kenedy.  Tu y yo now has an oil pump and natural gas tanks, with large trucks entering and exiting all parts of the day.  Ranches all over Karnes County have sprouted this new crop, along with new houses and fences, gates and roads. 

For Tu y yo, it’s a dramatic change, but it’s not in most ways.  It’s still a place to visit, drink a cold beer, work on a project outside, and wait for the best-tasting, mesquite-smoked-anything to be ready – Polish sausage from Falls City if I’m lucky.  My dad remarked, why is it that I can sit here and do nothing when there’s so much to be done?  Huh.  Maybe this is the only place you can really just be, and that’s always been part of its charm.

For me and the kids, it was a pure dose of Vitamin D.

Mom drove us out on the “Emily C” (named after Grampa’s late cousin) to see the oil well.  We were a circus!  A baby, two kids, Maybee-dog, Granny, Mom and me all rode this thing together.

We went on many treasure hunts.  Our findings: a large feather, an old wasp nest, small egg shells, cactus blooming, and three deer running! 

The kids enjoyed picking wildflowers.

We worked on potty-training…

Dean and Fiona got to ride in a red cart behind the Emily C – they couldn’t stop giggling!  They were bouncing around, and Granny kept hollering at Grampa to slow down!

It was a relaxing visit, lots of time spent outside under the mesquite tree, waiting for that Falls City sausage, enjoying each other’s company, just like always.

On to the coast…