I'm sitting here on my back porch on New Year's Day looking out over the hills drinking red wine and wondering how much more chocolate I can safely consume today! The temperature is a cool 59 in the shade and there is a north easterly breeze blowing. My corn bread is in the oven and I can't wait to bite into it with a generous slab of butter topping it. I hope it's good with jalapenos, corn, cilantro and cheddar in it. You guessed it, I'm a foody!
Below we have a cup of black eyed peas, rice, ham with Swiss Chard, cornbread with jalapeno, cheese and corn, all for good luck in the coming year:
As I look over the hills I can't help but think about the settlers. 200 years ago that came to this land. I've read enough books to know what a difficult time they had. I can certainly understand it. The soil is mostly limestone sprinkled with cactus. I've had a difficlut time myself trying to carve a garden out of this land. I can just imagine them facing more problems than I with no power tools, only hand held shovels and hoes. I've read that many starved to death or died of disease. I know for sure I would have starved considering nothing but Swiss Chard grows here in the winter and even that might freeze.
There is a grave yard at the bottom of the hill with headstones carved indicating how some died. I love to walk through that cemetery and imagine what life was like for them. I once visited a very old cemetery about 50 miles from here in Frederiicksburg, Texas. So many children died from disease or starvation during that time that they have a separate area just for them. It's so sad looking at the tiny little graves and wondering. One headstone indicated a woman had been killed by Indians but not scalped.
Sometimes I can visualize an Indian on the horizon riding his pony. This was their land. I can't help but wonder how they felt being pushed from their land, dying in battle to protect it and suffering from the diseases that the white man brought. The white man considered the Indian uncivilized and the Indian felt the same about the white man and his kind. The Indians did not eat pig and thought the white was filthy and smelled because he did eat pig. One of the basic meats besides deer was hog. The settlers were considered pretty well off if they raised hogs and had a smoke house where they hung them to cure. It's unfortunate they could not have respected each other's ways and lived together peacefully.. History has proven that doesn't happen easily, if ever.The invaders are bullies and the invaded are always fighting to win back what was rightfully theirs.
The settlers came from all over, many from Germany, settling in these hills. Some came from Louisiana and further east. They lived from the land, killing wild animals such as deer, squirrel, possum and rabbit. Salt and coffee was hard to come by. When they ran out of coffee they would use their seed corn brought with them for planting,,, roasting and grinding it to make a kind of coffee. All I have to do is jump in my air conditioned suv and head to the nearest HEB or Costco to stock up when I'm running low. I don't have to watch for Indians over the horizon or shoot a deer or squirrel for our next meal. If my chickens aren't laying or the coyotes have eaten them it's only 30 minutes or less for me to the local grocery to get a dozen eggs.
When I'm walking my dogs I think about the settlers and the Indians. I imagine a brave astride his pony at the top of a hill and think if I were a settler what would I do? I like to think I would have made friends with them. However I know that they were so mistreated that they often killed for revenge and kidnapped women and children and who can blame them? They would steal a white child to replace a member of their tribe who had been killed and raise the child as an Indian. These children were rarely recovered because the Indians were constantly on the move. I remember reading a story about Lyndon B Johnson's ancestors who lived in this area. The men were off on a cattle drive and the women were home on the prairie alone. They saw Indians coming and hid under a false floor in the house. A little girl felt a spider crawling on her and she tried so hard not to scream and give away their hiding place. However she could contain herself no longer and let out a frightful scream. You are going to want to strangle me because I don't remember how the story went after that except she did live to tell the story so they must have survived. I remember her saying how guilty she felt for not being more brave.
I can't help but think of the people who settled this land as I live my life of ease. I wish they could see it all from the great beyond and marvel at it. Who knows, maybe they can!
Rugged limestone ground with cedar, cactus and scrub oaks:
The following information is taken from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Longhorn_(cattle) "The early Texas settlers obtained feral Mexican cattle from the borderland between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande and mixed them with their own eastern cattle. The result was a tough, rangy animal with long legs and long horns extending up to seven feet. .The longhorn had the ability to survive on often poor vegetation of the open range. Many Texas ranchers keep herds purely because of their link to Texas history." Below is a picture I took of a Texas Longhorn walking along the county road. We pass them daily as we enter and exit the ranch.
I'm hoping the paw print below is from one of my daughter's dogs and not that of a cougar!
Below we have a cup of black eyed peas, rice, ham with Swiss Chard, cornbread with jalapeno, cheese and corn, all for good luck in the coming year:
As I look over the hills I can't help but think about the settlers. 200 years ago that came to this land. I've read enough books to know what a difficult time they had. I can certainly understand it. The soil is mostly limestone sprinkled with cactus. I've had a difficlut time myself trying to carve a garden out of this land. I can just imagine them facing more problems than I with no power tools, only hand held shovels and hoes. I've read that many starved to death or died of disease. I know for sure I would have starved considering nothing but Swiss Chard grows here in the winter and even that might freeze.
There is a grave yard at the bottom of the hill with headstones carved indicating how some died. I love to walk through that cemetery and imagine what life was like for them. I once visited a very old cemetery about 50 miles from here in Frederiicksburg, Texas. So many children died from disease or starvation during that time that they have a separate area just for them. It's so sad looking at the tiny little graves and wondering. One headstone indicated a woman had been killed by Indians but not scalped.
Sometimes I can visualize an Indian on the horizon riding his pony. This was their land. I can't help but wonder how they felt being pushed from their land, dying in battle to protect it and suffering from the diseases that the white man brought. The white man considered the Indian uncivilized and the Indian felt the same about the white man and his kind. The Indians did not eat pig and thought the white was filthy and smelled because he did eat pig. One of the basic meats besides deer was hog. The settlers were considered pretty well off if they raised hogs and had a smoke house where they hung them to cure. It's unfortunate they could not have respected each other's ways and lived together peacefully.. History has proven that doesn't happen easily, if ever.The invaders are bullies and the invaded are always fighting to win back what was rightfully theirs.
The settlers came from all over, many from Germany, settling in these hills. Some came from Louisiana and further east. They lived from the land, killing wild animals such as deer, squirrel, possum and rabbit. Salt and coffee was hard to come by. When they ran out of coffee they would use their seed corn brought with them for planting,,, roasting and grinding it to make a kind of coffee. All I have to do is jump in my air conditioned suv and head to the nearest HEB or Costco to stock up when I'm running low. I don't have to watch for Indians over the horizon or shoot a deer or squirrel for our next meal. If my chickens aren't laying or the coyotes have eaten them it's only 30 minutes or less for me to the local grocery to get a dozen eggs.
When I'm walking my dogs I think about the settlers and the Indians. I imagine a brave astride his pony at the top of a hill and think if I were a settler what would I do? I like to think I would have made friends with them. However I know that they were so mistreated that they often killed for revenge and kidnapped women and children and who can blame them? They would steal a white child to replace a member of their tribe who had been killed and raise the child as an Indian. These children were rarely recovered because the Indians were constantly on the move. I remember reading a story about Lyndon B Johnson's ancestors who lived in this area. The men were off on a cattle drive and the women were home on the prairie alone. They saw Indians coming and hid under a false floor in the house. A little girl felt a spider crawling on her and she tried so hard not to scream and give away their hiding place. However she could contain herself no longer and let out a frightful scream. You are going to want to strangle me because I don't remember how the story went after that except she did live to tell the story so they must have survived. I remember her saying how guilty she felt for not being more brave.
I can't help but think of the people who settled this land as I live my life of ease. I wish they could see it all from the great beyond and marvel at it. Who knows, maybe they can!
Rugged limestone ground with cedar, cactus and scrub oaks:
The following information is taken from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Longhorn_(cattle) "The early Texas settlers obtained feral Mexican cattle from the borderland between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande and mixed them with their own eastern cattle. The result was a tough, rangy animal with long legs and long horns extending up to seven feet. .The longhorn had the ability to survive on often poor vegetation of the open range. Many Texas ranchers keep herds purely because of their link to Texas history." Below is a picture I took of a Texas Longhorn walking along the county road. We pass them daily as we enter and exit the ranch.
I'm hoping the paw print below is from one of my daughter's dogs and not that of a cougar!
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