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

David Singleton, President of a company building a new kind of development in Georgetown, Texas, has recently been going public with a project that I've been hearing about through the grapevine for quite some time.  I had a delightful phone conversation a while back with the gentleman who's planning it. 

Goodwater is planned for the former site of the Adkins Ranch on 195 at Shell Road/County Road 143.  The vision that was described to me for the 600-acre subdivision consists of several neighborhoods, surrounding a man-made lake (currently under construction, based on what I see when I drive by the site daily), each neighborhood consisting of a diversity of home styles and prices, from first-time homeowner homes built in bungalow style to three story brownstones with living quarters in the top two floors and businesses serving the community on the bottom floors.  The goal is for it to be an easy ten minute walk from one side of the neighborhood to the other, encouraging walking and reducing the necessity for driving.  The homes will be built by custom builders rather than national companies.

In a recent newspaper article, Mr. Singleton said that the new community promises to be another Old Town, an historical community near downtown Georgetown. 

He says that it will take 10 to 15 years to build the community.  I can hardly wait! 

                                     YOU WANT TO DO WHAT WITH OUR WHAT?!?!?!?!

In Erath County, work is nearing completion on a Microgy, Inc., project to provide renewable natural gas to the Lower Colorado River Authority which serves much of Central Texas.  The source?  Cow exhaust.  A renewable source.  Trust me on this one.  I live on a ranch, with cattle - it is VERY renewable!  

It's amazing to see all the options we can come up with for renewable energy when we really put our minds to it.

Not just because they're fun to have around - which they are.  Not just as a companion, though they are that, too.  Not just because they're entertaining to watch.  There is a place on every farm or ranch for a dog, as one of the tools of the place.

Here on our 55 acres outside Jarrell in Central Texas, just 40 miles north of Austin, we've found through experience that a dog is an essential part of life in the country. 

We had a dog (a Great Pyrenees, Inconstant Moon of Underfoot, aka Moon) when we moved here from city life in Austin.  Several neighbors also had GP's; it was interesting to "watch" the coyotes carefully avoid the properties with them (though not those with other breeds of dogs) on their nightly choral rounds - they'd make a circuitous path across the countryside.  And the GP's would sing back - beautiful to hear, both of them. 

A while later we got a companion for Moon, Jake, a blue heeler (Australian Cattle Dog).  Jake was born with an eye to "the rulz" - when we weren't making strict rules for him, mostly because he was so young he still had quite the puppy tummy, he would make them for himself.  Jake has many stories, but those are for another blog, another time.  The one thing we couldn't break him of was chasing vehicles, no matter how hard he tried (I guess it was one of the rulz), and we lost him that way.

Moon, who as a 5-month-old puppy had a spinal embolysm from which we nursed her back, we lost to old age.  And we were a ranch without a dog.  We tried to find a suitable replacement, but it had to be a pup who would not chase chickens (ours are free range).  We tried a couple, and when they showed they were chicken chasers, they went to fine new homes without chickens. 

Eventually, my sales manager mentioned someone who had 9 heeler pups available.  We ended up with J.D., who is a heeler but whose coat shows the Dalmation way back in his ancestry - neither red nor blue, he is mostly white with black spots.  But a fine heeler in every other way, classic of the breed.  He has a partially deflated basketball, and the most important thing in his world, other than us, even more important than food, is that we "kick the ball!" so that he can chase it. 

A few months ago, I blogged on here that we had gotten a friend for J.D., a lab/GP cross named Joey, and I posted a photo of the two of them (Joey was 12 weeks in the photo, J.D. about a year old).  It is so much fun to watch them play together!  I took them in for their shots a few weeks ago (when Joey was 5 months old) - J.D. weighed 55 lbs, Joey, baby that he is, weighed 65.  He's not quite grown into his feet yet, still has a bit of growing to do.  Joey could care less about chasing the ball; however, an absolutely guaranteed "Come" call for him is "cookie!"  Works every time.  Otherwise, his philosophy of life is, "When in doubt, lie down.  If there's water to lie down in, better yet."

The times that we have not had a dog, we've had a constant problem with raccoons, possums and such, getting into the cat food, the garbage, and what not.  The mere presence of a dog on the place seems to solve that problem - even the barn, a few hundred feet from the house, is pest-free.  (Do not expect this to work with skunks, however.  Or snakes.) 

In addition, a dog (the right dog) is an early warning system, a doorbell of sorts, that someone has come to visit.  Since, on a ranch, you're as likely to be out in the barn as in the house when visitors arrive, and since sometimes visitors aren't people you know, it's nice to have a dual-purpose doorbell and security alarm. 

Dogs serve other purposes on the farm, from herding to babysitting to guarding a flock or herd.  They're pretty much an indispensable tool as well as a valued friend. 

Here's a more current photo of J.D. and baby Joey  It's hard to get a good photo of them - they always want to be right up in the camera's lens! 

I've been meme'd again!  Michele Connors meme'd me a while back, and I've only now found time to respond.  Now, I must come up with five MORE things you don't knkow about me!  This will be hard, as I'm pretty much, at this a

1. I used to be an excessively picky eater - I reached age 20, growing up in Texas, without even tasting Mexican food or BBQ.   Now, I'm a chef and, while I won't eat just anything, will at least try most things.
2. I cannot abide the taste of beer (tastes and smells like rotten bananas to me).  Likewise, not so crazy about cheese unless it's in cheesecake or pizza or thoroughly adulterated in some way.  I will cook with beer, however (chili, roast beef, and so on) - it makes a great ingredient!
3. I've had a long and varied career, everything from secretary to legal assistant to executive assistant to word processing business owner to horse breeder to real estate agent.  When I was a little girl, I was outraged at the fact that there was only one life and we had to pick what we wanted to do with it.  I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up, but real estate comes pretty darned close.
4. I'm an old hippy.   Was 18 in 1968 - enough said? 
5. Our children are 11-1/2 years apart.  So I "mothered" for, pretty much, 30 years straight.  (Who am I kidding?  They're 23 and 35 and I STILL "mother".) 

And, now, who to pass the meme torch on to? 

I pick . . .

Christine Durham, a fellow agent at ERA Colonial Real Estate who's recently joined AR.

Sharon Sapp, another AR newbie and fellow horse enthusiast.

Jeanne Dufort, because the urls of our websites are only one word apart, so we must think alike!

Linda Box Taylor, another Texas agent, up in Plano.

Lexa Monteirth, just because I like her attitude.

Tomorrow, I'm doing something that I should have done years ago. 

A little background:  a few years ago, I was knocked down by a yearling filly back in the pasture.  Simple enough, except that there's an entire hour missing from my life, during which time I traversed 500 yards, through two chained gates, down a hill, across a creek, and into our house - I have no memory of that time at all, and likely never will.

I didn't ride, then, for some six months, due to recurring dizzy spells (don't want to have a dizzy spell on the back of a horse).  However, when I did get back on, I discovered that while my forebrain is entirely comfortable with the idea of riding, my lizard back brain goes into gibbering fits whenever I think about getting into a saddle, which is silly because I'm perfectly comfortable handling horses, even stallions, heck, even yearling fillies, on the ground and out in the pasture where the accident happened. 

A couple of weeks ago, I decided enough is enough.  I miss trail riding, I miss that particular kind of communion with a horse, I miss the peace that it gave me.  (It kept me sane, sometimes - hmmm, maybe that explains a few things?)   I thought about how to get over it, and decided lessons on a bombproof lesson horse might do the trick.  (My Lydia, the mare that I would trust my life with - and have - is 30 and arthritic enough that she's not an option - or, at least, I don't want to ask it of her.)  But not just any lessons, from just anybody.

I decided that I needed to take a lesson or lessons from the woman who gave me my confidence on horseback in the first place - Linda Dovers of Bear Creek Stables of Manchaca, Texas.  Before I lost my nerve, I called, only to get a return call that she'd just left on vacation and wanted me to call back in a week.  So I did, and a round of phone tag started.  But finally we made contact.

Tomorrow, Thursday, August 23, I will be driving all the way from Jarrell, Texas, to have a lesson with Linda, on one of her bombproof lesson horses, who also first gave me my confidence.  ("I know you're nervous, just sit up there and get comfortable.  I know what she's asking you to do, and I'll take care of it, don't worry about a thing."  The horses are just as much instructors as the two-legged instructors are.)  Wish me luck - I expect this to be a life-altering event, much as the first time I got on one of her horses was.  

After an astonishingly wet and mild summer, Summer has decided to make an appearance here in the Austin area, and we've actually had a couple of days where the temps got up to 100.  Given the humidity, staying inside in the air conditioning would appear to be the thought of the day.  The horses are all hanging out under the trees; the cows likewise, lying down cudding.   The dogs and some of the cats have found the shade under the Dodge pickup.  Even the chickens are looking for some shade.

However, I mustn't complain.  Last year, I was showing property when it was 104 in the shade.  (I know, because there was a thermometer on the porch of a listing I showed.)  When I came home, I found this on the top of our freezer out back.  (This is Angel, who knows how to relax better than anybody I know.)

Short of going to New Mexico, this is the best thing to do in the afternoon in Texas in August. 

For those of you down along the Texas coast who have horses or other livestock, one of the primary concerns during this time of year, particularly when something like Dean is bearing down and it's not yet quite sure where he's going to land or what impact he might have on your area, is, if you have to evacuate, where on earth you're going to take your animals

The Horse Gazette has information on places in various parts of the country that have housing available for situations like this.  You might want to bookmark this for future reference, even if you're not in this situation now. 

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito. - Dalai Lama

Here in Texas, we're in the middle of the time of year (and of the wettest year on record) when the above maeks all sorts of sense to us.  Mosquitos abound, and we take all sorts of precautions to avoid them and to eliminate them. 

Once of the things that is done on horse farms and properties is to eliminate all standing water possible.  However, we have watering tanks for our horses and cattle - what to do about them?  Some folks empty them regularly and scrub them out and clean them and refill them. Quite the chore, and it's hard to stay ahead of the little critters. 

A few years back, when I was boarding at a stables that 130 acres divided into paddocks, with water tanks in each paddock, I learned a technique that has served me well since getting my own horse property here in Central Texas.  It's a losing battle, anyway, because we have a creek that runs through the property, sometimes mroe lazily than others, but we do our best to eliminate what we can.  As it happens, the same tool used to eliminate mosquitos can be used to help keep the tanks clean, as well (as long as you don't insist on them shining, and the horses seem to like them better when they're not so shiny). 

It's tiny, it's cheap ($.12 apiece, generally, though you can spend as much as a quarter for one if you want a big one), it's entertaining, it's effective - and it puts no poisons into the environment. 

What's the secret?  It's goldfish! 

Goldfish will not only get rid of mosquito larvae in a trice, before they have a chance to become actual mosquitoes, but they will keep the tank clean, as well. 

The trick is to buy a few "feeder fish" at the pet store and put them in a full tank (one that hasn't been just filled with chlorinated water, of course).  I usually put 10 in a 250 gallon tank, 5 in a 100 gallon one.  They will grow just to the point that there are the right number of "inches" of fish for the number of gallons in the tank, and stop there - unless, of course, one dies or something and then they'll grow some more.  If you're really lucky, you'll end up with tiny goldfish, as well, that you might be able to sell back to the pet store- it's been known to happen. 

I've put a bunch of feeder goldfish in the evening into a tank that was brimming with mosquito larvae.  The next morning, there were, maybe, 10 larvae - by noon, none.  Mosquitoes will, of course, continue to lay eggs in the tank, but they never make it. 

Once the balance is established, you won't need to feed the goldfish, either.  An ecosystem is created in which the horses (and/or cows), water, fish, feed, along with you playing your part by keeping the tank topped off and not messing with it any further than that (you can even hook up an automatic waterer if you want), and the fish feed themselves in the process of keeping the tank clean and larvae free. 

And, no, the horses don't "drink" the fish (a question often asked), any more than they "drink" the fish in their normal watering hole, a creek or pond.  In fact, with the goldfish, you're returning to a more natural situation than the usual scrub-the-tank-make-sure-there's-not-a-spec of dirt in it routine.  The horses, given their options, have told me they like this better.

So, there you have it - cheap, easy, easy on the environment, natural, beautiful - all the things you look for in a solution to the mosquito problem.  They'll be with us always, of course, but as the Dalai Lama said, small things DO make a difference.  This is one small thing that we can do for our environment that's actually pleasant.

Many agents handle horse property.  But what makes an agent a horse property specialist? 

First, the agent should understand one very basic thing.  "Acres" does not equal "suitable for horses".  Yes, acres are important, but what matters most is the kind of acres that they are.  Straight up and down acres you'd think would be obviously unsuitable for horses, but before I was an agent, looking for most own property, I had agents tell me their listing was perfect for my horses when what it was truly perfect for was my veterinarian's pocket book. 

A horse property specialist should know about horses.  Something else that seems obvious, but I've had many agents claim to be horse property specialists who would find themselves at a loss if presented with a naked horse and a pile of tack, never mind having some experience with the proper use of a muck bucket and a shovel. 

A horse property specialist should understand the kinds of soil that exist in their area (here in Central Texas it can vary a lot), where the different kinds are generally located, how to recognize each kind, and the virtues and vices of each as relates to horses, both for grazing and for riding. 

A horse property specialist needs to be familiar with the kinds of forage that exist in their area.  In addition, a list of hay suppliers or of hay balers (if the horse owner plans to grow their own) is a good resource to have. 

Continue reading here.

One of the things that I always recommend that sellers do when preparing to put their home on the market, and one thing that hardly any of them do, is to get a pre-inspection of their home.  I suspect not doing it has to do with one of two things:  (1) not wanting to spend a penny more than they absolutely have to, and (2) not wanting to know anything wrong that they might have to disclose.  Both of these are obvious, but wrong, reasons.

Let's address (1) first.  An inspection will cost a few hundred dollars (generally $500 or less, depending on whether you have a septic system that needs inspection or want to have a termite inspection).  Having that pre-inspection, however, can generate enough confidence in prospective buyers that you're likely to get an offer sooner, and for more money, than you would otherwise.  If something turns up in the inspection, and you repair it and can show the evidence of the repairs (receipts, etc.), a possible negative turning up at the buyer's inspection is turned into a positive - you've acted pro-actively to fix problems, again, generating confidence in the house in the prospective buyer.  This potentially translates into less money going out in mortgage payments because of a quicker sale, and the ability for you, the seller, to move forward with your own plans. 

The second issue, not wanting to know something you'd have to disclose, is akin to hiding your head under the covers and thinking that no one will ever be able to see you.  Remember, the buyer will get an inspection (unless you already have one, in which case they may decide to accept yours - it happens).  So, anything you don't already know about is more than likely to turn up in that inspection, and you'll have to deal with it then, at a point when you already thought you had the house sold, you'll have to negotiate what you're willing to do in the way of repairs or credit the buyer in the way of repair allowances, and the deal may just fall through as a result. 

Wouldn't it be better to know what you're selling, to have no unpleasant surprises during the option period, to be able to price the house based on what it is, either making repairs or pricing the house accordingly, and have a prompt, clean, sweet deal for a good price? 

There are many good reasons for getting your house inspected before putting it on the market, and few good reasons not to do so.