HOME ON THE RANCH "Jan Freed writes with spice and flair! An exciting new voice in contemporary romance." —bestselling author Susan Wiggs The H&H Cattle Company, near Gonzales, Texas Scott Hayes—He's the owner. Scott's a hardworking cattleman who's got a reputation with the ladies. Not that he has any time for womanizing these days. Fact is, Scott's putting in twenty-hour stretches, now that H&H is down to one hired hand. And the word around these parts is that H&H is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Margaret Winston—When Scott calls her a princess, he doesn't mean it as a compliment! Still, Maggie has a few choice names for Scott, none of them pretty. That's because Maggie knows Scott from the old days and there's bad blood—and a good horse—between them. HOME ON THE RANCH
This memoir by a former president of the University of Texas at Austin and chancellor of the University of Texas System cogently explains how money, power, politics, and ambition all play roles in the business of running the state's premier university sys
Compost your old "complete" gardening guide. There's a new way of gardening in Texas that's healthier for people and the environment, more effective at growing vigorous plants and reducing pests, cheaper to maintain, and just more fun. It's Howard Garrett's "The Natural Way" organic gardening program, and it's all here in Texas Gardening the Natural Way. This book is the first complete, state-of-the-art organic gardening handbook for Texas. Using Howard Garrett's new mainstream gardening techniques, Texas Gardening the Natural Way presents a total gardening program: How to plan, plant, and maintain beautiful landscapes without using chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides. Gardening fundamentals: soils, landscape design, planting techniques, and maintenance practices. Includes more native and adaptable varieties of garden and landscape plants than any other guide on the market. Trees: 134 species of evergreens, berry- and fruit-bearing, flowering, yellow fall color, orange fall color, and red fall color. Shrubs and specialty plants: 85 species for sun, shade, spring flowering, summer flowering, and treeform shrubs. Ground covers and vines: 51 species for sun and shade. Annuals and perennials: 136 species for fall color, winter color, summer color in shade and sun, and spring color. Also seeding rates for wildflowers. Lawn grasses: 10 species for sun and shade, with additional information on 16 native grasses, seeding rates for 32 grasses, and suggested mowing heights. Fruits, nuts, and vegetables: 58 species, with a vegetable planting chart and information on organic pecan and fruit tree growing, fruit varieties for Texas, grape and pecan varieties, and gardening by the moon. Common green manure crops: 29 crops that help enrich the soil. Herbs: 66 species for culinary and medicinal uses. Bugs: 73 types of helpful and harmful bugs, with organic remedies for pests, lists of beneficial bugs and plants that attract them, a beneficial bug release schedule, and sources for beneficial bugs. Plant diseases: organic treatments for 55 common problems. Organic methods for repelling mice, rabbits, armadillos, beavers, cats, squirrels, and deer. Organic management practices: watering, fertilizing, controlling weeds, releasing beneficial insects, biological controls (including bats and purple martins), and recipes for Garrett Juice, fire ant control drench, vinegar herbicide, Sick Tree Treatment, and Tree Trunk Goop. Average first and last freeze dates for locations around the state. Organic fertilizers and soil amendments: 61 varieties, including full instructions for making compost. Organic pest control products: 30 varieties. Common house plants and poisonous plants. Instructions for climbing vegetable structures and bat houses. 833 gorgeous full-color photographs.
The idea of Texas was forged in the crucible of frontier warfare between 1822 and 1865, when Anglo-Americans adapted to mounted combat north of the Rio Grande. This cavalry-centric arena, which had long been the domain of Plains Indians and the Spanish Empire, compelled an adaptive martial tradition that shaped early Lone Star society. Beginning with initial tactical innovation in Spanish Tejas and culminating with massive mobilization for the Civil War, Texas society developed a distinctive way of war defined by armed horsemanship, volunteer militancy, and short-term mobilization as it grappled with both tribal and international opponents. Drawing upon military reports, participants' memoirs, and government documents, cavalry officer Nathan A. Jennings analyzes the evolution of Texan militarism from tribal clashes of colonial Tejas, territorial wars of the Texas Republic, the Mexican-American War, border conflicts of antebellum Texas, and the cataclysmic Civil War. In each conflict Texan volunteers answered the call to arms with marked enthusiasm for mounted combat. Riding for the Lone Star explores this societal passion--with emphasis on the historic rise of the Texas Rangers--through unflinching examination of territorial competition with Comanches, Mexicans, and Unionists. Even as statesmen Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston emerged as influential strategic leaders, captains like Edward Burleson, John Coffee Hays, and John Salmon Ford attained fame for tactical success.
A collection of Courtney's columns from the Texas Monthly, curing the curious, exorcizing bedevilment, and orienting the disoriented, advising "on such things as: Is it wrong to wear your football team's jersey to church? When out at a dancehall, do you need to stick with the one that brung ya? Is it real Tex-Mex if it's served with a side of black beans? Can one have too many Texas-themed tattoos?"--Amazon.com.
Just as the time of the vaquero is near to running its course, the days of the full-time sheep and goat shearers—tasinques—are coming to a close. So asserts author Robert Aguero, son and grandson of tasinques and recipient of the proud tradition of those who labored with their hands in the dusty corrals of the Nueces River Valley and the Edwards Plateau, harvesting the wool and mohair that fueled the industry known by the shearers and their families as la trasquila. Aguero, himself a veteran of the shearing sheds, offers stories and perspectives gleaned both from personal experience and interviews with dozens of individuals intimately connected with the Central Texas wool and mohair industry. From the docienteros—virtuosos able to shear 200 animals or more per day—to the rancheros—the owners of the ranches who hired the shearing crews, year after year—Aguero has captured the essence of a way of life that is rapidly passing into history. The work opens with a foreword by esteemed historian Arnoldo De León. A host of photographs accompanies the narrative, capturing visually the dust, sweat, and noise of the atajo—the shearing pen—along with the pride in accomplishment that characterizes the tasinque tradition. Robert Aguero’s Shearing Sheep and Angora Goats the Texas Way: A Legacy of Pride both documents and pays homage to an honored way of life and livelihood that is disappearing from the region.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower—and a Texas native—takes us on a journey through the most controversial state in America. • “Beautifully written…. Essential reading [for] anyone who wants to understand how one state changed the trajectory of the country.” —NPR Texas is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king, but Texas now leads California in technology exports. Low taxes and minimal regulation have produced extraordinary growth, but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. Bringing together the historical and the contemporary, the political and the personal, Texas native Lawrence Wright gives us a colorful, wide-ranging portrait of a state that not only reflects our country as it is, but as it may become—and shows how the battle for Texas’s soul encompasses us all.
When a panther attacks a family of homesteaders in the remote hill country of Texas, it leaves a young girl traumatised and scarred, and her mother dead. Samantha is determined to find and kill the animal and avenge her mother, and her half-brother Benjamin, helpless to make her see sense, joins her quest. Dragged into the panther hunters' crusade by the force and purity of Samantha's desire for revenge are a charismatic outlaw, a haunted, compassionate preacher, and an aged but relentless tracker dog. As the members of this unlikely posse hunt the giant panther, they in turn are pursued by a hapless, sadistic soldier with a score to settle. And Benjamin can only try to protect his sister from her own obsession, and tell her story in his uniquely vivid voice. The breathtaking saga of a steadfast girl's revenge against an implacable and unknowable beast, The Which Way Tree is a timeless tale full of warmth and humour, testament to the power of adventure and enduring love.
Texas Off the Beaten Path features the things travelers and locals want to see and experience––if only they knew about them. From the best in local dining to quirky cultural tidbits to hidden attractions, unique finds, and unusual locales, Texas Off the Beaten Path takes the reader down the road less traveled and reveals a side of Texas that other guidebooks just don't offer.
