Longhorn Day

Today (April 2) was a quiet day. Smoky called it recuperation day. I did laundry and went to the grocery store. Let's talk grocery stores for a minute. This area of Texas has H-E-B Grocery stores. I've shopped at H-E-B twice now and I'm a fan! Not only do they have lots of fresh produce, prices are reasonable and there are lots of organic products. The store has a sign when you walk in saying they are focused on selling products without high-fructose corn syrup. Yea!

We're talking big, folks.  Texas big. Think Walmart on steroids. Texans (and visitors like me) swarm these stores. You'll only find H-E-B in Texas and Mexico, which is a fairly recent expansion. According to Wikipedia, the business grew to $13 billion in 2006. I'm going to miss H-E-B when we head home.

This afternoon, Smoky looked out our trailer door and noticed that the longhorn cattle were in the field right behind our parking spot. He grabbed the camera and headed down the road to get some pictures.

We saw four adult longhorn just over the fence from our trailer (and some
bluebonnets are in the field!).

Smoky had not been photographing long when our neighbor came out of his trailer carrying a bag of Mission tortilla chips. He said to me, "They like chips. Watch." Then he started calling for Oreo, the name his grandson had given to the biggest steer. In a few minutes, Oreo and one of the cows walked down the field toward us. Meanwhile, Smoky was still shooting some distance away.

Afraid he was going to miss the excitement with the tortilla chips, I called him. And called. And called. Finally he glanced my way and headed to the neighbor with the chips. By this time Oreo and the other adults (two cows and one other steer) had made their way to us. Oreo wasn't shy at all about poking his head over the fence to get better access to the chips.

Meet Oreo, Texas longhorn, up close and personal!

These longhorns love tortilla chips!

When Smoky got to us, he showed me what he had been photographing when I called him.

Smoky saw and photographed the young calf, who was born in this field. 

No wonder he didn't respond right away!

He's a cute little thing, isn't he?

I met another of our neighbors while doing laundry, learned that her husband Ron loved photography, and learned they were going out with a local guide for a bluebonnet tour on Tuesday morning. She graciously got the information about the guide, and Smoky was able to sign up with him as well. His trip is Tuesday late afternoon/evening. If you want a sneak peak at what encouraged Smoky to sign up, go to this website. I expect we'll have a bunch of photos to post after Tuesday!

--Shann