For the Thanksgiving break I went to visit my girlfriend’s house up north in Anna, Texas. She was born and raised on a ranch in the middle of nowhere about an hour north of Dallas. I grew up in the city of Amsterdam so I every time I come up here it’s very different, but I like the peace and calmness of it. The nature here is beautiful and I saw this as a perfect opportunity to write my blog.
I went on a walk with my girlfriend on her parent’s farm, which is about 54 acres. It’s the Friday after Thanksgiving around 4PM. The weather was about 15 degrees Celsius. Her family owns a lot of animals including horses, cows, and dogs. The horses where galloping around while the cows were quietly eating grass. The farm didn’t look as green as it normally does because of the season were in, but it’s still a precious sight. We walked further towards the dry creek bed, which becomes an active waterway during rainstorms. The creek bed divides two parts of the ranch, the first part is where the house is, and the second part includes a huge barn. In the creek we saw tracks of a deer, and as we looked up, we saw the actual deer! It looked very healthy and strong. It was staring at me for a couple of seconds while I was taking a picture, and then it ran away.
We walked further, trying to locate the deer that just ran away, but we couldn’t find it. For me it’s a crazy and awesome thought that you can see so much wildlife in your own backyard. I have also seen rabbits on the farm, occasionally the dogs show up with a dead rabbit. There were many birds flying around, and sitting in bushes and trees. That was the only sound we could here, the country life is so unbelievably different than the life in Austin or Amsterdam, and it’s a privilege I can experience it here at the other side of the world.
I have been here a couple of times before. Last time we spotted a wild boar, I wanted to get closer to it, but my girlfriend told me that was not a good idea, apparently they can be very aggressive and dangerous. I love to be outdoors, especially here in the United States. I love my home country more than anything else, but the Netherlands doesn’t really have exciting wildlife or beautiful nature. At night, we built a huge campfire and we could here coyotes howling in the distance, another thing that I never experienced back home. It sounded like there was a whole pack of them, probably hunting for food.
I enjoyed coming here to Anna. Coming to Blunn Creek is an equally satisfying experience, but I thought it was better this time to write my blog about a different place in Texas.
There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace