Nonfiction | January 05, 2015
Ranching on Dry Ground
Carolyn Osborn
On top of one of the mesas at the ranch at sunset while looking out above a valley toward other distant blue mesas, the view is a grandiose background for a Western movie or a chorus singing, “O beautiful for spacious skies. . . .” The chorus would be standing on dry ground.
This ranch I eventually inherited is, by Southwestern measures, a small one spreading over parts of Lampasas and Coryell counties in central Texas. Roughly arrow-shaped, it’s located in the northernmost hill country. From horseback in the spring, the land resembles a large English park until you get down from the saddle and something bites or scratches you.
This essay is not currently available online.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Nonfiction
Jun 19 2020
Exile in the Desert with Sarmi Moussa
In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything. —Thomas Merton It was past midnight, and the bench I sat on in the small mud-brick airport… read more
Editors' Prize Winner
Jun 19 2020
The Trailer
Sometime in late March the camper trailer appears: fifteen feet long with a crude black-and-green paint job, discarded on our property behind Starbucks, Little Caesars, and the AT&T store. It… read more
Nonfiction
Feb 11 2020
Amends
“There’s someone in the bathroom at night who tries to stop me from getting in,” my father insists a few weeks before his death “I don’t see him, but I… read more