Bluebonnet Ridge - A Historical Family Farm in the Texas Hill Country

02/27/2023

12/05/2022

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09/01/2022

Enjoying some R&R this week... here's who is keeping me company!

10/28/2021

Woohoo! We just hit our 25th ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️review! So excited for how well everything has gone this year!

10/20/2021

When staying at Bluebonnet Ridge, make sure you head into Belton and enjoy some amazing BBQ!

10/19/2021

08/04/2021

We’ve been doing some infrastructure work on the property! It’s been a long time since there has been water in the tank but this is what 40,000+ pounds of bentonite clay will get you!

07/14/2021

07/08/2021

Crepe Myrtles blooming beautifully at Bluebonnet Ridge!

Come stay in our comfortable home that is rated 4.9 of 5 stars over on VRBO!

03/31/2021

Enjoyed watching this beautiful guy off the back porch this morning....

03/30/2021

A new attraction near by!

02/24/2021

This past week, Bluebonnet Ridge was graciously spared significant damage during this crazy Texas weather. We are so grateful for friendly Texans who stepped in to help as March is nearly full hosting a variety of guests!

02/11/2021

Just wrapped our first non-family/friend guest reservation! So grateful to have a place where people can gather, even amidst hard circumstances. Would love to host you and your family or friends!

01/10/2021

Beautiful and unusual scene at the farm this afternoon!

01/05/2021

Sunrise or sunset...we are looking forward to welcoming you to the farm!

01/04/2021

Hello All! It's been a while since updating this page...but hopefully it will be worth it when you see what we have been up to. 2020 has been a crazy year for all of us however, it has brought some blessings with it as well. Our heart for Bluebonnet Ridge has been to share our historical family farm with our friends, and create a space to meet many new friends as well. One of the first steps to doing that was to create a space to share, and we are almost ready to go live with this exciting new space. It will be featured at VRBO beginning February 1st but you will be the first outside of our immediate family to see what we have done. So, here is a sneak peak into the main house at Bluebonnet Ridge. We would love to read your comments once you see the preview.

11/26/2020

Beautiful with the sun coming up this morning...

03/30/2020

It's not all work and no play on the farm. We manage to get a little fishing in from time to time. Catherine hauled the biggest one in on this warm sunny afternoon!

03/28/2020

In the mid-'80s Dad took early retirement from the utility company he had worked at for 27 years and built a house on the farm. Shortly after that, he began planting the improved variety pecan orchards you see in the photos of this page. The pecans Dad began to harvest several years later turned out to be some of the best in the region and in some cases in the state. Here are just a few of the many awards Dad won over the years.

03/28/2020

This is a couple of photos of Mom and Dad at the State Capital in Austin Texas when they were awarded the 100 Year Heritage Award. The award is for 100 years of continuous farming by the same family on the farm. These photos were taken in 2014, the year after the achievement was accomplished.

03/12/2020

A mechanical harvester is then pulled over the fallen pecans in an ever-tightening circle under each tree. The drum on this harvester is about 8 feet long and 4 feet in diameter with hundreds of rubber sweepers that collect the pecans off the ground. The pecans are swept into a wide conveyer as a blower removes leaves and twigs. The pecans then travel to a large storage hopper.

03/12/2020

This video is showing how my father would clamp a centrifugal shaker to the pecan tree and shake the ripe pecans out of the tree. You can literally feel the entire ground shake from where I took this video. Pecans are raining out of the tree by the thousands.

03/10/2020

Nearly 400 pecan trees adorn the property... there are quite a number of native trees as well as two orchards planted in 1980s. Here are some pictures taken in Fall 2012 showing the harvesting process. The farm produces about a dozen varieties which have one numerous awards over the years. They have been shipped sold across the United States and around the world all by word of mouth!

03/10/2020

Nearly 400 pecan trees adorn the property... there are quite a number of native trees as well as two orchards planted in 1980s. Here are some pictures taken in Fall 2012 showing the harvesting process. The farm produces about a dozen varieties which have one numerous awards over the years. They have been shipped sold across the United States and around the world all by word of mouth!

03/08/2020

03/08/2020

03/08/2020

Hello everyone and welcome to our new FB page!

We are excited to introduce you to our family farm! Our hope is that over the coming months and years we will be able to share this beautiful place with all of our friends. Our family is in the beginning stages of what we hope will become a retreat and event center that will allow y'all to enjoy it as much as we did growing up.

Here is a little history about this beautiful spot in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. The farm was purchased in 1914 by our Great Grandfather and passed down four generations. Inducted into the Texas Land Heritage Registry in 2014, as a working farm by a single-family, the primary crops were cotton, wheat, corn, and maize. Vegetables such as squash, okra and watermelons, as well as many varieties of beans and peas, were grown to sell locally and canned to preserve for winter food. Fruit trees included delicious peaches, plums, and pears. Livestock included cattle and hogs. Before tractors came along, horses were used to plow and harvest. Later on, in the 1960s, other ventures included 50,000 turkeys being raised on the property. In the 1980s, approximately 350 pecan trees were planted and drip-irrigated, creating what are now two beautiful and mature orchards. Other features to note are the massive and tall cottonwood trees along the river bottom and the century-old oak trees. The farm also features approximately one-half mile of river frontage along the Lampasas River.

03/08/2020

These are a few of the photos from around the farm.