Merry Christmas from Tennessee.

[Dave Nowlin]

I hope all are well and that you don't get sick today stuffing yourself with all the good food.;)

[Armybrat]

Merry Christmas from Texas - home of the "real U.T." (wink):

http://i.imgur.com/HR3TXRF.jpg

[Dave Nowlin]

My gosh armybrat, that's all bull to me. LOL

[DeaconKC]

Merry Christmas!

[Armybrat]

My gosh armybrat, that's all bull to me. LOL

Bevo ain't a bull no mo, he's a steer. He ain't got any balls. lol

[Dave Nowlin]

Bevo ain't a bull no mo, he's a steer. He ain't got any balls. lol

Actually I was being nice. The "bull" in this context wasn't referring to the animal. It had to do with what the real UT is. LOL

[Armybrat]

Actually I was being nice. The "bull" in this context wasn't referring to the animal. It had to do with what the real UT is. LOL
Oh yeah, I laughed.

Dunno how that "real U.T." trash talk got started. You SEC folks oughta get a kick out of the Texas A&M aggies - they try to insult the U. of Texas by referring to it as "t.u."

I'd like to see a home & home series between the Horns & the Vols.

[Dave Nowlin]

Give Butch Jones a couple more years to rebuild. He inherited a mess.

[Armybrat]

Give Butch Jones a couple more years to rebuild. He inherited a mess.

So did Charlie Strong. Even a lot of Texas fans don't realize how badly Mack Brown had mailed it in after Colt McCoy went down early in the CCG with Bama, costing "us" the National Championship that year. Our QB situation has been a clusterbomb ever since, not to mention the O-line, defense, and a general all around softness.

[Dave Nowlin]

It's from eating all that meat BBQed over Mesquite. The gift from Mexico that keeps on giving.

In February we went to the King Ranch. While we were there we were told that when Richard King (founder of the King Ranch) drove the herd of longhorns he bought in Mexico over the Rio Grande, he bought mesquite to the U.S. We were told the longhorns liked eating the seed pods of the mesquite and that as they pooped on this side of the Rio Grande the mesquite was bought to our soil. We were told that when Richard King first came to Texas the landscape was covered with various types of cactus and native grasses with very little in the way of trees and no mesquite. Today the whole region from outside Houston a ways to Harlingen and beyond is covered with Mesquite.

[Armybrat]

Most likely Richard King rustled those cattle from the Mexicans. That was a favorite pastime for ranchers on both sides of the border throughout the 19th Century. lol.

We drove down 77 through the King Ranch this past summer to spend 4th of July with family in a beachfront condo at South Padre Island. Saw lots of Eagle Ford oil patch activity off in the brushy landscape on I-37 out of San Antonio, particularly in Atascosa County.

Yes, the pesky Mesquite has spread all the way up here to Central Texas too. That and the nasty cedar trees are a plague for landowners & costly to thin out. Luckily my property is totally clear of it.

Anyway - Bought these flasks to give to two of my sons for Christmas:

http://www.texascapitolgiftshop.com/ProductImage.ckimg?img=982390.jpg&size=large

[Bawanna]

Mesquite does make a pretty fine pistol grip, especially if a person can get it stabilized, right purty.

I wish I had a pile of dry cedar. I lucked out and found a log load of dry wood but I'm hurting for kindling. Almost ready to start tearing siding off the neighbors house but not quite.

[Armybrat]

Mesquite makes for a decent flavor smoked brisket.

My nephew's weekend ranch up near San Saba has mostly scrub post oak, with a little Mesquite mixed in...

http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/3c1253c4d6d8f15bbe204af8d8e754ca153362d.jpg

[Bawanna]

Damn, I like that thar back yard. Raise that railing up for a proper wheelchair height rifle rest and it would be perfect.

How fur to the nearest neighbor? And is that a round pen off to the left yonder?

[Dave Nowlin]

Bawanna you just need a bigger sandbag then the one he is using. I live on 50 acres out in the country with a spring fed pond in the holler in front of my house. We have deer that live on the place and wild turkeys pass though every now and again. People are supposed to live close together like ants. As long as you can see a neighbors house in the distance in the winter with the leaves off, you're close enough to other people. Peace and tranquility has great value. The older you get the more you realize this.

[Armybrat]

Damn, I like that thar back yard. Raise that railing up for a proper wheelchair height rifle rest and it would be perfect.

How fur to the nearest neighbor? And is that a round pen off to the left yonder?

Nearest yayhoo is about a half mile in the other direction (behind nephew), and yes, he has a small loading pen setup - he runs only a dozen Longhorns on his 80 acre property. The one on the right wound up on the dinner table a couple weeks later:

http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/96f2508482d91166bc50f7cd84f7bf0bc7ddc07.jpg

[Armybrat]

When nephew's daughter got married several years ago, her hubby's workplace (LaRue Tactical) gave the groom a new tricked-our AR-15. For their first anniversary LaRue gave her a matching gun. She also has her CHL.

Gotta love these Texas gals.

[Bawanna]

Wow, a hubby that works at LaRue? How sweet is that.

I like wide open spaces myself. Neighbors a mile away would be better but half a mile is pretty good.

There's some horns on that there long horn for sure. Just get thru a door and he can't follow ya, never make it through, lessen he's got enough momentum to take out some walls too, which he no doubt probably has.

[Armybrat]

I don't think the kid works at LaRue anymore - so no family discounts unfortunately. As if I could afford one anyway.

That scraggly Longhorn would have a tough time bustin' into nephew's ranchette shack - it's a steel frame building - the cabin part has limestone walls, and the attached garage/workshop is standard metal siding.

http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/51315b43d619bc05990f2265fcf2b3a16d425f8.jpg

His place used to be part of a pretty big ranch that was subdivided into 80 or 160 acre "ranchettes" for weekend ranchers from the big city. Some call them "hobby ranches". There is almost no public land available for hunting in Texas, so non-landowners have to seek expensive leases from the landowners, or buy a place like my nephew did. He owns another 30 acre lot near a lake - both places are teeming with Whitetail. My brother has his own hunting camp land in the Hill Country west of Austin. It is also loaded with deer.
My little plot (25 acres) is closer to town & is rented to a hay farmer - that gives me an ag exemption from the gawdawful property taxes. Nephew & his friends recently bagged 130+ dove off my place.

The Hollywood actor Tommy Lee Jones, a native Texan, has a big ranch a few miles away from nephew's place near San Saba.