When a Place Finds You
The ranch was at the end of a two-mile unpaved private road, the kind of road that already whispers to you that you’re leaving the world behind. When we reached the gate that evening, the realtor hadn’t arrived yet. I killed the engine of the truck. Silence.
The kids tumbled out like cooped-up puppies, too fidgety from a long day of property hunting to sit still one second longer. They bolted toward the acre-sized stock pond—though in Texas, of course, it’s called a stock tank—shaped like a fat fish with its wide mouth gulping the golden light.
My wife and I stepped out slowly. And then we just stood. Stood and breathed. Stood and gazed. Stood in a silence so complete it rang in the ears. The cicadas were singing, the kids were laughing by the water, and otherwise—nothing.
It was the so-called Golden Hour, that alchemy of sunlight about an hour before sunset, when Texas shows you her most tender face. We were thirty miles southeast of Austin, out in Bastrop County, and the property was bathed in warmth and glory. The grass shimmered, the trees glowed, the pond reflected the last light like liquid fire.
I realized, for the first time, that Texas light is different. It doesn’t just illuminate—it blesses. It consecrates. That light has stayed with me ever since.
The ranch had been vacant for six months, asleep and waiting. No tractors, no lowing cattle, no ranch hands calling across the fields. Just quiet. But in my mind’s eye, I could already see it alive again—children running, horses grazing, the hum of daily work, life restored.
And then I knew. This place had found us.
We had already signed for another property days earlier, but the deal collapsed at the last moment. That’s how life works: you look for a place, and then the right place finds you.
And what a place it was. My heart surrendered instantly. I knew I was a lost cause—this land had me.
My wife glanced back at me, smiling. No words. Just that smile. And I sighed, a sigh that said: Alright, you win, Texas. You win.
In the distance stood the ranch house, timber-built under a red tin roof, porches front and back with a swing waiting to creak in the breeze. Outbuildings dotted the land: a red barn, a ranch hand’s cottage, the pump house. The land sloped gently, the pond marking the low point like a jewel set in gold.
Half of it was pasture, waving tall grasses like a golden sea. Old oaks dotted the expanse, offering shade and permanence. Joel Salatin once wrote of “the soul-soothing properties of silvopastures,” how every landscape survey ranks the pastoral above all others. I knew what he meant. This view, this scene, was medicine for the soul.
The other half was wild woods—overgrown, tangled, broadleaf and mesquite. Texas ranchers curse mesquite, but I saw wildness, mystery, promise. To my children it was paradise, a jungle filled with snakes, hogs, and adventures waiting to be lived.
Yes, it needed TLC—mountains of it. The realtor would no doubt describe it as having “potential.” But to us, it was perfection. To me, it was love at first sight. The most beautiful land I had ever laid eyes on.
We had to have it.
And so we did.
The timing was providential. The U.S. real estate market was still staggering from the 2008 crash, agricultural land especially. Prices were low. Having sold our London house, we had a healthy deposit. Within a week, we were officially Texas ranchers.
We christened it Vaquera Ranch—the cowgirl’s ranch—for my wife, la vaquera.
In that summer of 2011, thirty miles outside Austin, my Texas journey truly began.
How Texas Became Our Destiny
People sometimes ask: How did you end up in Texas? It’s not the obvious destination for a European family with seven kids, horses in tow, and a life scattered between London and Miami. But destiny doesn’t ask for permission.
We had come to Texas two months earlier, renting a summer house in San Antonio while we searched. Texas was meant to be a fresh start, a new chapter for a marriage that was straining under too many miles, too many temptations, too much wear and tear.
We had moved to the U.S. from London in September 2008, chasing both opportunity and a dream. I had founded a firm of accountants in London and wanted to plant our first American office. Miami seemed right at the time: sunshine, international business, a gateway to Latin America.
But Miami is a city of arrivals and departures, not roots. It’s a glittering airport lounge of a city. People pass through, chase money, chase dreams, then move on. I grew tired of the impermanence.
During the summer of 2010, we vacationed in the Austin area. It wasn’t about booming tech or real estate trends—Austin wasn’t the darling it would soon become. We just loved the countryside, the space, the quirkiness. Enough said.
By spring 2011, our marriage was on the edge. We had to decide: do we end it, or do we begin again? We chose to begin again. But we knew it had to be somewhere utterly different. Somewhere far from Miami. Somewhere we could breathe, work, live together differently.
Yes, it was cliché—fleeing to the country like so many couples do when life cracks open. But sometimes clichés hold truth. We wanted to live wholesomely, shoulder to shoulder as a family, hands in the dirt, eyes on the horizon. We wanted a forever home, a place where our seven children could grow with the land.
A Family of Seven, Headed for Texas
Seven children. Ages three to fifteen. And yes, we were homeschooling.
We never trusted governments with education. We saw schools as factories stamping out compliant worker bees. We wanted our children free, independent, thinkers not drones. What better classroom than a ranch, than the wide-open Texas sky?
Texas makes space for homeschoolers. There’s a strong community, plenty of freedom. We knew we would find allies, friends, comrades in this adventure.
My wife loved it. She had always loved horses. In Miami, we rented a horse property and owned three horses, but space was limited, ambitions cramped. Texas opened doors. A ranch meant breeding, training, a true equestrian life.
And me? I had wanted to be a cowboy since boyhood. I devoured Karl May’s novels, watched Bonanza with wide eyes. Texas was childhood fantasy made flesh.
Business was no obstacle. My brother ran the London office. Miami was stable enough to run remotely. We had email, Skype. Texas wasn’t Mars—it was just the next frontier.
And so we packed it all. We gave notice in Miami, loaded the truck, hitched the horse trailer. My wife drove the Dodge Ram, the horses rattling behind her. I drove the SUV, seven kids crammed in, restless but excited. Four days of road, asphalt unspooling beneath us. And then—San Antonio.
The Dream and the Work
Standing at that ranch gate, in the glow of evening, the dream was perfect. But dreams come wrapped in hard work.
The barn sagged. The fences leaned. The pastures needed mowing, the woods needed taming. The stock tank begged for clearing. Nothing was turnkey. Everything required effort.
But that was the point. We weren’t buying comfort. We were buying work worth doing. Work that heals, work that binds, work that makes you a family.
That summer, we began. Mowing, fixing, sweating, dreaming. We were ranchers, or at least pretending to be, learning by doing, stumbling and rising. The land began to know us, and we began to know it.
Looking Back
Today, when I think back to that first evening, I still see the children laughing at the pond, my wife’s smile, the golden light draped across the land. I remember the silence of a ranch asleep, waiting to be woken.
Texas didn’t just give us land. It gave us a chance. A chance at renewal. A chance at adventure. A chance to live wide open, under skies that never end.
I sometimes think: if that first deal hadn’t fallen through, if we hadn’t driven down that dusty private road, if the timing had been just a shade different—we might never have found Vaquera Ranch. But fate has its ways.
And when the right place finds you, you know.
That evening, I knew.
And so began our Texas journey.
To be Continued
