Post #25

 January 30, 2026

First of all Belated Happy Birthdays to:  Judy, Gordy, Creed, Rachel and Greg!

Yesterday, Thursday we had a fun day.  We drove to Kingsville, Texas and went to the King Ranch.  

It's the largest ranch in the world, 825,000 acres!  We took a tour of the ranch and saw many animals such as:  Quarter horses, long horned cattle, javelinas (similar to pigs) , armadillos, peacocks

 

King Ranch is more than just cattle.  Although they have 35,000 cattle and over 200 working horses, they are also the largest turfgrass grower in Texas and one of the largest cotton and milo producers. They own an additional 60,000 acres in Florida where they grow sugar cane, turfgrass and citrus, making them one of the largest sod producer in Florida and the state's largest producer of orange juice.  King Ranch also has operations in 3 other states and 7 countries besides the United States.  King Ranch, Texas generates additional revenue with over 150,000 acres of specialized hunting and over 600 gas and oil wells.  Finally, King Ranch has over 500 employee spread across 54 locations and 4 continents where it has an annual revenue north of 630 million dollars.

Yes, Ford's pickup trucks are in partnership with King Ranch.  In fact, there is a Ford Service Garage on the ranch just to service ranch vehicles, including their fleet of school buses.  Yup, the ranch has it's own school system with it's own separate school district.  In addition to all the sports programs you normally expect, they also offer competition in archery, skeet shooting and rodeo.

Monday, February 21, 2026

I know we haven't written lately, but we have been laying back and not doing much.  Layne has gone fishing, a few times during the night and also day time.  Not much luck though.  We sometimes go on drives to be by the water and have a late lunch.  We also are starting to plan our Alaska trip. 

Today was interesting.  We heard a lot of sirens around us and found out the property close to us (about 3 blocks away) was on fire.  You could see the heavy black smoke blowing in the air as a few building and 9 acres burned.  They called in 7 local fire departments and airtankers to finally gain control of the fire.  Thank goodness the wind was blowing in the direction opposite of us.  It's so dry here and we were worried about a huge grass fire.   

This is what it looked like from our RV:

Later