We are currently saving up to buy land.

Native Americans occupied central Texas for a very long time. Many tribes and cultures including Clovis, Folsom, Tonkawa, Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche crossed these plains, hunted here, and made homes here. Then Spain, then France, then Spain, then Mexico, then The Republic of Texas all took claims on this land while it was still mostly occupied by the Native Americans, especially around here and to the west. Then, when it was a part of the United Stated of America, towns that we now know in this area came into being. Then the land was a part of Confederate States and again the United States. And that is only considering the human occupants.

From bacteria to dinosaurs to sea creatures to the large animals such as mammoth and saber-toothed tigers all lived here. Even a six-foot high armadillo lived here. Very recently, bear, antelope, land turtles, and mountain lions were common. And what about the plants? All of those creatures also carved out a living and affected the land.

What else lived on the very square foot you are now occupying? What did they leave behind? What didn’t they leave behind?

Living History Museum

Our walk through time will include fossil, Native American, Spanish, settler, inventions and expansions from 1860-1960, and chemical/modern farming areas. Finally our future farming area will incorprate lessons we have learned from all the other areas so we can do better. But let’s not just look at old things.

“Science asks us to learn about organisms. Traditional knowledge asks us to learn from them.”
Robyn Wall Kimmerer

How many people can say they helped to quickly move camp, attaching tepee poles to horse? Or have strung a bow to shoot arrows during a traditional hoop game? Or made clothes or cooked around a fire, while listening to the old stories?

Stories passed along in the Native cultures have always been great teachers. Listen and learn the rules of foraging and how rules has been shown to strengthen the plants, not weaken them. Learn how setting fires affected the grazing of the bison, how the fires and the bison helped the grass but stopped trees, and how an area was hunted without being depleted. Bent trees were also used for navigation and to point to water spots, and some of those trees can still be seen.

Would you like help build a log cabin? Or drive a buckboard wagon? Or plow a field with a horse? Any cowboy worth his salt knows how to rope. How about spinning threads and weaving cloth? Or doing laundry and cooking without electricity?

The original settlers aroud here depleted the land a lot more than we realize. In Johnson City, accounts say they came to a paradise full of timber and wild game galore. Can you imagine it taking days for a herd of bison to pass through? But within a few generations, the settlers hit bedrock, for they had depleted the soil. The bison were gone. The ecology was severely altered, including the amount of available water.

Would you like to bottle feed a baby goat (kid) or watch a chicken hatch, experiencing its first moments in this world?

There are lots of things we can re-learn to do, including things that will bring us back to a connection to nature and the raw items we use. The Living Museum will include plants and animals, for they were a big part of the day-to-day.

Visitors will be able to care for baby animals. They can learn to milk a goat. Or watch what looks like a normal egg hatch into a chicken. It is funny what is just out of sight, sometimes. Piglets and calves will need feeding as well as the mothers.

Visitors can even take some time with a horse. Feed him, groom him, and check his feet for painful rocks. Then they can ride him around in an arena with barrels and learn to work with him. How does the horse communicate? What can animals teach us?

We will give our visitors a chance to help with all of our farm chores if they want to. Fifteen minutes per person adds up, and contributing even a little makes a difference. And when they visit again, they can see the fruits of their work!

Working Farm

Our “farm through history” will use lessons from both nature and history to create farming that is healthy long into the future. To do so, we will have to take care of the land and its creatures, thus working to balance the ecosystem. Everybody can do the same, and we want to teach them how.

We will provide free classes to help landowners, no matter how much land they have or what they do with it.

Our farm will work with natural cycles instead of against them. An example is below.

The easiest cycle to describe is the cows creating manure that attracts bugs, which the chickens eat. Both the cow and the chicken create what we call waste, but microorganisms call food. The microorganisms then create waste that plants call food. The plants then feed the cows, which feed the chickens and so on.

We think we can grow food without depleting natural resources or creating waste. Instead, we will create resources from waste. We want to show landowners in the area to do the same. Moisure retention (avoiding desertification) is so important.

Another way to look at cycles is to see the negative effects of when a cycle is broken. Take our above example with the cows. If we don’t balance them with the other species, we end up with too much manure, which is toxic. Bugs abound, which are controlled by chemicals. The cows over-graze and end up in the dirt. Instead of grazing, they eat corn and grain, which is unnatural to them. More chemicals are needed to fix the resulting ill-health.

Another example is breaking cycles with wildlife. Our area is hot and rocky. Deer are overpopulated due to us killing off big cats and coyotes back in the day. Deer eat leafy vegetation, which if not eaten would turn to soil, which we need. Rocky ground is easily 20-40 degrees hotter than leafy ground covered with soil. It also retains water better. Our farm will naturally have more water, and we believe we can create a cooler than normal environment for our visitors.

Why a Business Model

We have decided to make this into a business even though it would usually be a non-profit. We will be able to make a bigger impact with both visitors and landowners with a model that forces us to think about revenue instead of depending on continuous donations.

However, an advantage of being a non-profit is that many people contribute a variety of viewpoints. We therefore want to have an advisory board that represents many diverse ideas.

Wimberley, Texas – Already A Success

Wimberley is in an ideal location, close to both Austin and San Antonio. It attracts visitors from all over the world. Tourists want to visit the small town with the beautiful river. They are looking to get away from the city and to relax in nature.

While tourist-oriented, we still think the town could use more attractions. Further, we hope to make the ranch itself a destination, attracting more visitors to the town and supporting the tourism industry and its people, here.

Learn more about us.

Sarah has done many things that have led her to this project. She has realized that if she had all the money in the world, this is what she’d want to do with it. But it won’t take all that.

Sarah was born and raised in Austin, Texas. Her family loved to hike and camp, and she spent much of her childhood outside.

At age 15 Sarah learned how to put shoes on horses by apprenticing with a Farrier. Eventually, she got some of her own clients.

In college while still doing farrier work, she did an internship at the Louisville Zoo, where she helped raise endangered species to be released into the wild. Then she worked at a horse-riding stable both during summer and after graduating, guiding people on horseback rides and even becoming manager for a short while.

She learned about nature and animal husbandry from these experiences.

Sarah also owned a landscaping company in Wimberley, where she learned about gardening and how easy it is to destroy the environment. She always took jobs with people who were willing to be stewards of their land, not masters of it.

Then she started Wimberley Karate and Yoga Studio, which is still in business. She still teaches karate and uses what she learned as a teacher in her managerial style. She believes her job as a manager is to provide what is needed for everyone to be successful. If everyone on the team is successful, the team is a winner.

The studio has taught her first hand that business is not always just a business. When a business helps a community, the community will step up for the business, as they did for her studio during COVID. Relationships between the commnity and businesses are so important for the better of all.

She also works for GeoGrowers, a company that produces bulk organic soil for gardeners and farmers. Her job there is as a bookkeeper/manager and is helping make the company more efficient and profitable.

Sarah already has many people lined up to help. This is a community project, and everyone can add their piece - from thread spinners and weavers to land and horse owners to people who can restore old items. Area museums and historical non-profits are also contributing knowledge and resources.

Partnerships

We hope to create partnerships with individuals and groups both local and beyond. The more input we have from a variety of ideas, the better.

We also want to contribute resources as we can. The more vibrant and successful other museums are, the better. We know COVID was very hard on them. We have advertising ideas for the success of all.

We are also looking to partner with nurturers of the land.

Why help?

1 - Learning history, seeing repeating cycles, and learning how to see from different viewpoints is valuable. We will teach history in a fun, interactive, kinetic way.

2 - Healthy ecosystems far into the future is important. Farming is a big part of that. We will teach people how to better care for their land using natural cycles, whether they have large tracts or small lots.