Just Horsin' Around - Thoughts on Central Texas Real Estate and More

Step back into the peaceful days of yesteryear, but with modern conveniences.   Watch your longhorns and horses graze from the rocker on your front porch.  Make a Thanksgiving pecan pie from your homegrown pecans.  Go on a trail ride - this is a perfect horse property!

Charming 1923 home, barn, garage, and outbuildings on 95 +/1 beautiful Central Texas acres.  Secluded, but just a quick jump to a major road.  45 miles from the intersection of IH35 and Hwy 79 in Round Rock, an easy commute for a home in the country or a weekend retreat. 

Fish in Alligator Creek (crosses the property) or in one of the two ponds (one stocked with bass). 

Wait - is that Tom and Huck on the other bank? 

Amenities:

House:  Approximately 1600sf w/large grandfather hybrid pecan trees in yard; new Ralph Lauren paint inside; satellite dish & receivers for TV and high speed internet; new ceiling fans & light fixtures; oversized 80 gallon water heater; custom cedar front porch; Garage - 2 car detached - metal

Homestead: 

Barn w/2 stalls & corral, hay loft, tack room and grain room - metal; Pole barn - metal; Chicken coop - metal; 28.3 acres crop - lease income $1000+/yr. - ag exempt

LAND: 

In addition to the 31 +/- acres with the homestead, an additional 63.918 acres

Coastal

2 ponds - smaller one is underground spring fed, larger one is appx. 4000sf - stocked w/catfish

Creek with all weather pockets

Fences 1-2 years old (cross fenced for 20 acre pasture and run)

Well (fed by underground spring), Electric pole at well

Sorting pen with loading chute

Pecan Trees - 65 producing grandfather native pecans

Game - deer, turkey, wild hog, dove; Ag exempt

$475,000 for the entire property.

65 +/- acres available separately for $260,000. 

Homestead and 31 +/- acres available separately for $215,000. 

If purchased separately, 65 acres must sell first. 

For more information or more photos, please  contact me - I'd love to show it to you!

It was reported today in the Austin American-Statesman that the owner of Windy Point Park on Lake Travis, is for sale.  Money talks - the asking price is $15,000,000.  The owner can't afford to donate the park to Travis County (nor should he have to) - and, and 78, he wants to retire to Fiji - and who can blame him? 

Bob Barstow put together the land from several parcels in the 1970's and 1980's, and the public has been enjoying it ever since.  (As an old hippy, I can attest that the public was likely enjoying it even before then.)  It adjoins Travis County's Bob Wentz Park. 

Mr. Barstow would prefer not to sell to a developer.  As he says, he cares about the land and he'd like to be proud of it when he comes back through Austin, not see it torn up into individual homesites.  I'm sure all the thousands of people who have enjoyed the park in the last few decades would prefer that that not happen, as well.  The county says they can't afford to buy the park.  Maybe a fundraiser - could we have enough bake sales to come up with a significant chunk of the needed 15 million?  Maybe make and sell neck coolers?  There's gotta be a way to save the park!  I mean, after all, no more playing in Lake Travis at Windy Point?  No more trips to the Oasis after a day at the park? 

In the meantime, all of you who have played on the lake at Windy Point Park, take advantage of it while you can.  This may be the end of an era (or two). 

This past weekend my husband, daughter and I were working hard getting our house in Austin ready for our son to move into this week (he's moving back to Texas from NYC).  Sunday afternoon, we needed a break, and we had been talking about landscaping possibilities and were considering bamboo as a sight and noise screen along one property line.  (Clumping bamboo only, lest anyone have a heart attack at the idea.)  So we decided to have lunch at Green Mesquite BBQ and then head on over to the Zilker Botanical Gardens and check out the different kinds of bamboo in the living bamboo exhibit there. 

The 3-acre Oriental Gardens at the Botanical Gardens were built between 1967 and 1969 (when they opened) by 70-year-old Isamu Taniguchi, personally, with one helper, as a gift to the city of Austin.  I came to Austin in 1969; my husband had been there for a couple of years by then, attending college, and knew Mr. Taniguchi due to a shared interest in oriental gardening, so I heard many interesting stories. 

The gardens are entered through a pair of stone pillars, following a path that winds down the limestone and cedar hillside to the tea house.

The tea house is the focal point of the garden.  It was interesting going there after an absence of some years  - I can remember when it was a new construction, and now it seems as if it has been there forever, placed so as to give a peaceful view no matter which direction you turn. 

As our purpose was to examine different kinds of bamboo to find one suitable for our purposes, the bamboo trail was perfect.  Plus, it was a most peaceful and cool place to spend a September Sunday afternoon. 

Sadly, in spite of signs to the contrary, and in spite of the peaceful nature of the garden, there are those who disrespect it by carving their initials on the tall bamboo in various places around the garden. 

The Koi Pond (built to resemble a ship at anchor) is a wonderfully peaceful place to spend a while - you can forget your worries watching the truly enormous fish swimming around the pond and the sunlight sparkling off the water. 

We only had a little while to spend and only saw part of the garden on this trip.  Another trip, another day.  But if you're in Austin, to live or for a visit, I highly recommend that you drop by the Zilker Botanical Gardens and let the peace of Isamu Taniguchi's gift ease your way. 

One thing I love about Central Texas is that if you don't like a particular topography or climate, you can just drive 50 miles in any given direction and find one of the five or six very different faces of Texas - hill country, blackland prairie, piney woods, Highland Lakes, all within an easy drive.  No need to be stuck with just one! 

However, there's another way the Central Texas landscape is ever-changing - from one day to the next, even one hour to the next, a light morning fog hovering just over our front pasture. 

If you look closely, just to the left of center, you can see a couple of our cows barely hidden in the mist.  (This was before they saw me and came up demanding breakfast, making it MOST difficult to take still, peaceful, morning photos.)