Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n I was taken for a tour of the ranch and l loved the beauty of the wide expanse and the silence. The air was fresh. The horizon was a blaze of ribbons in the early evening.<\/p>\n
I think in a way that Texas chose the wrong nickname: The Lone Star State? You have all the stars. At the ranch that evening, I stood in an open field and saw what no one sees in New Jersey: The Milky Way, all the constellations, a Texas stampede of stars traveling above me like fireworks exploding on the ceiling of the AT&T Stadium.<\/p>\n
Yes, the excitement and beauty of Texas, but, as in life, there is always a downside. I am afraid of being eaten in Texas.<\/p>\n
When I was walking on the ranch, I asked my friend, more for conversation, if there were rattlesnakes. \u201cOh sure,\u201d I was told as casually as if I had asked if there were horses in Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, sure. Lots of rattlesnakes. Copperheads, too, and coral snakes as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Jersey has garter snakes, about as dangerous as worms or shoelaces, and I haven\u2019t seen one in years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have bobcats, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHere, on the ranch?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t a bobcat a lion? Don\u2019t lions eat gladiators and tourists from New Jersey? There was once a feral cat in my yard that I fed for a number of months. It purred a lot.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have javelinas too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s a javelina?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, some people think they\u2019re wild pigs. They can weigh up to 60 pounds. They destroy crops and dig up the soil. They do lots of damage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre they dangerous?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, sure. They\u2019ll charge you, bite you if provoked, even use their sharp tusks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tusks! I was bitten by a chipmunk last summer while cleaning out my garden shed.<\/p>\n
As I continued on the generous tour, I leaned into a cactus and for days, I felt this irritation in my thigh. There are no cacti in New Jersey ready to attack me.<\/p>\n
And then the chiggers.<\/p>\n
I had never heard of chiggers and when I returned to New Jersey the next day, my ankle began to itch \u2026 and itch \u2026 and itch. My entire left ankle was covered with small, red welts. I had no idea what happened. Did I contract a Texas plague? Was my hotel filled with bed bugs? When I looked up my symptoms on the internet, chiggers! Chiggers attacked me on the ranch the day before.<\/p>\n
Yes, we have mosquitoes in my backyard and an occasional tick, but if I stayed long enough on the Texas ranch, perhaps I would have been picked up and carried off into the Texas sunset by a swarm of victorious chiggers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have scorpions too!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cScorpions? You have scorpions in Texas?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, sure!\u201d<\/p>\n
Now I understand why Texas has the charming tradition of wearing those beautiful boots: yes, for riding and for keeping steady in stirrups and staying secure on the backs of horses. But I also learned that they wear them to protect their legs from sharp bushes, cactus plants, scorpions\u2026 and snakes!<\/p>\n
I have wild squirrels in my backyard, big ones that are about 20 inches long and weigh about one pound.<\/p>\n
Just before I left the ranch, I thanked my friend and joked, \u201cWell, at least there aren\u2019t any alligators in Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAlligators?\u201d he said with a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cYOU HAVE ALLIGATORS IN TEXAS?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have an adopted state: Texas. For the past three years, I have been visiting Texas on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2353,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-78350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-commentary","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}