Real Estate

My brother, sister, and I have decided to sell the last thing our Dad left us: 40 acres in South Texas.

Big sigh.

Such a hard decision. If you're like lots of people I know, it's been ingrained in you from day one to never sell family land. I can still hear my Dad saying it, "Whatever you do, never sell the farm." But the fact of the matter is, none of us will ever be able to do anything with it. We aren't close enough to run cattle on it (unless we hire hands to take care of them for us). We don't have the ability to farm it. It's not big enough (or rural enough) to lease it for hunting. South Texas land is hard, folks. Mesquite trees crop up overnight, rain is scarce most of the year, and sandy soil is hard to grow anything in except prickly pear, mesquite, snakes, and fire ants. You have to work hard to get something out of it in return.

Don't get me wrong, I love that small tract of property. It is so very rustic and just embodies South Texas. When you step out of the truck it smells like South Texas. It has these huge sprawling oak trees that the branches sweep all the way to the ground. Wild grapevines crawl up the branches and produce beautiful dark purple grapes. Larger mesquite trees and prickly pear cactus just scream, "You're in Texas!!!!" The tank (pond, for those of you outside our borders) is where I learned to fish, shoot and fed catfish with my grandfather. In the springtime, acres and acres of bluebonnets and those pink butter-cup flowers and Indian blankets cover the back 10 acres. In the front, there are some of the most run down cattle pens, feed bunks, hay cribs and storage houses you ever saw, but something that would be so very true to Texas in a painting, all shaded by those giant oak trees. I spent countless hours helping spray little mesquite trees to clear the pasture, burning pear so the cows would have something green to eat, cutting down larger mesquites to sell for firewood, building fence. So many memories.

For the past several years we've leased it to the guy that owns the horse-shoe of land around it. He's actually made several improvements, new fence, cleared the front pasture and uses it to rotate pastures for his cattle. So we're going to try to sell it to him. I would feel better about things if he bought it because I know it will never be turned into a trailer park or a hog farm like the places down the road.

I feel so greedy and heartless and like I'm betraying Dad one last time. I'm selling this last thing of his so that my brother and sister will have something to start fresh with and so that Scott and I can start building our dreams. I try to comfort myself with that thought: Dad would want us to have land and be productive with it. He would love the fact that we raise cattle and cut hay and live in the country. But that is little consolation to the voice in my head saying, "Don't ever sell the land."

Hard decision. Practical choice.

(I'd post pictures, but all the ones I have are not digital. Hopefully will get to take a trip down there before it's all said and done and take some memories home with me)