Busy bearded man I have been the past few months. Some of you already know about the move down south.mwell some do not. I decided as director of the non profit I established in 2004 to not allocate any more funds in the growth and expansion in north Texas. Sold the property and purchased 16 acres in south Texas. Better climate, cheaper cost of living(lowest in the nation actually) and just more room to expand into a full public zoological institution. Well anyway, of course my mom I have to take care of, so I needed to build her a tiny cabin on a portion of the property. We will go through some of that process in this thread.
A little about the property first. It's located in San Benito Texas. The property is 4 miles north of the international boundary of Mexico and United States. 5 acres of the 16 are a huge pond, the other remaining acreage has a 3 acre garden maintained by the previous "renters" which are now the facility care keepers. They're an elder married couple from Vera Cruz Mexico, which are of Mayan decent. So they are very organic and very very into nature and the earths fortunes in which it provides. They grow thousands of species including medicinal herbs, plants, and 100s of edible organic greens, veggies and fruits.this was a huge selling point to me of the purchase, of this property. I first saw it thanksgiving evening after making a 10 hour drive south from Dallas. Luckily I speak Spanish, long story short they were beyond thrilled that I offered them to stay in the house on the property free of rent as long they like if they helped with the tortoises, growing food, and tending to the property, and whatever plants they planted are legally mine but that I have no interest in making income of what they sell to make their wages. They only make income off selling what is grown on the property and sold to locals. I'll go over what's in the garden in a caption of the photo below.
So anyways again. The organization has depleted the DBA of "North Texas Tortoise Sanctuary & Conservation Center" and we're currently operating under a new DBA but have not legitimately completed the website and public launch(y'all are the first to hear of it)
San Benito Wildlife Conservancy is our new operable DBA under our non-profit umbrella. So keep that in mind when you don't see the old name. The property is in a migratory path that receives over 3000 species of birds and every single species of North American butterfly. The property has ocelots, numerous species of bats, cars caras, Ospry, Eagles, parrots, indigo snakes, American alligators, lots of coral snakes, and over 300 year old ebony trees and of course Texas tortoises. A true gem and relic of land. I haven't seen the species of owls living in the palm tree patch overlooking the pond, but the care keepers have been visited by the USFW stating they have a tagged owl on the property, it's a species that has less than 40 remains in the natural territory. Very very very awesome to have such endangered natives species thriving all over the property.
Ok let's start of with a bunch of photos. It's kinda mixed with tiny house work and tortoise work. In general it's a mixture of living and tortoise set up preparation.
The chosen site for an additional approach and driveway for my moms tiny house began with clearing trees.
It seems terrible I know. But all the trees we removed were inhibiting growth of the ebony trees. We cleared the underbrush and smaller trees that were strangling the big endangered guys.
Utilized the backhoe I rented for a week to dig in a new approach storm drain for the driveway entrance.
Then the following day was load after load of caliche gravel for the driveway. 8 15yard trucks later and some tractor work an instant driveway(this process seem so quick and simple on this thread, but this was very very tiring work for 2 days of cutting, burning and clearing to get this stage.
Before all this slave labor was done, this spot I'm standing in couldn't even be ventured into without machete or chainsaw. I've got some sweet scars all over my arms from the branches and overgrown forest just working my way into the thicket. Those are all ebony trees with a few ficus trees mixed in.
Not sure if North American ebony are endangered, but I know South American and Indian are critically endangered trees. They're extremely beautiful trees. This property was a orange grove 57 years ago and abandoned. The only 4 ebony trees on the entire property near maturity that are well over 300 years old are near the house, this land is massive nesting ground for scarlet ibis(referred to as North American flamingo) they're very cool birds. Well ebony fruit some tiny berry like seed pod that the birds consume and obviously deficate and germinate the fruits. So naturally the 3 ebony relic trees were spread by the ibis and other migratory birds allowing the property to be overtaken by these majestic huge beautiful tropical trees.
Here's one of the relic trees. They grow very very very slow. The ones that are 60 years old are only about 8-10" trunk girth. This one is almost 32" there's 3 total this size.
A 57-60 year view of ebony forest aged trees.
One of the 3 relics that supplied the forest of ebony
Ok enough nerding about the awesome trees. We will go over some remodel work of the temporary tortoise building.
The property had a house constructed 60 years ago. Well back then they did stuff right and big. Beside the house stands an independent garage that's 1200 square foot. So I utilized this building for the destined placed for the tortoises and s temporary setting before I constructed the welcome center and zoological house.
Gonna be multiple posts because it's so large. So be patient.
A little about the property first. It's located in San Benito Texas. The property is 4 miles north of the international boundary of Mexico and United States. 5 acres of the 16 are a huge pond, the other remaining acreage has a 3 acre garden maintained by the previous "renters" which are now the facility care keepers. They're an elder married couple from Vera Cruz Mexico, which are of Mayan decent. So they are very organic and very very into nature and the earths fortunes in which it provides. They grow thousands of species including medicinal herbs, plants, and 100s of edible organic greens, veggies and fruits.this was a huge selling point to me of the purchase, of this property. I first saw it thanksgiving evening after making a 10 hour drive south from Dallas. Luckily I speak Spanish, long story short they were beyond thrilled that I offered them to stay in the house on the property free of rent as long they like if they helped with the tortoises, growing food, and tending to the property, and whatever plants they planted are legally mine but that I have no interest in making income of what they sell to make their wages. They only make income off selling what is grown on the property and sold to locals. I'll go over what's in the garden in a caption of the photo below.
So anyways again. The organization has depleted the DBA of "North Texas Tortoise Sanctuary & Conservation Center" and we're currently operating under a new DBA but have not legitimately completed the website and public launch(y'all are the first to hear of it)
San Benito Wildlife Conservancy is our new operable DBA under our non-profit umbrella. So keep that in mind when you don't see the old name. The property is in a migratory path that receives over 3000 species of birds and every single species of North American butterfly. The property has ocelots, numerous species of bats, cars caras, Ospry, Eagles, parrots, indigo snakes, American alligators, lots of coral snakes, and over 300 year old ebony trees and of course Texas tortoises. A true gem and relic of land. I haven't seen the species of owls living in the palm tree patch overlooking the pond, but the care keepers have been visited by the USFW stating they have a tagged owl on the property, it's a species that has less than 40 remains in the natural territory. Very very very awesome to have such endangered natives species thriving all over the property.
Ok let's start of with a bunch of photos. It's kinda mixed with tiny house work and tortoise work. In general it's a mixture of living and tortoise set up preparation.
The chosen site for an additional approach and driveway for my moms tiny house began with clearing trees.
It seems terrible I know. But all the trees we removed were inhibiting growth of the ebony trees. We cleared the underbrush and smaller trees that were strangling the big endangered guys.
Utilized the backhoe I rented for a week to dig in a new approach storm drain for the driveway entrance.
Then the following day was load after load of caliche gravel for the driveway. 8 15yard trucks later and some tractor work an instant driveway(this process seem so quick and simple on this thread, but this was very very tiring work for 2 days of cutting, burning and clearing to get this stage.
Before all this slave labor was done, this spot I'm standing in couldn't even be ventured into without machete or chainsaw. I've got some sweet scars all over my arms from the branches and overgrown forest just working my way into the thicket. Those are all ebony trees with a few ficus trees mixed in.
Not sure if North American ebony are endangered, but I know South American and Indian are critically endangered trees. They're extremely beautiful trees. This property was a orange grove 57 years ago and abandoned. The only 4 ebony trees on the entire property near maturity that are well over 300 years old are near the house, this land is massive nesting ground for scarlet ibis(referred to as North American flamingo) they're very cool birds. Well ebony fruit some tiny berry like seed pod that the birds consume and obviously deficate and germinate the fruits. So naturally the 3 ebony relic trees were spread by the ibis and other migratory birds allowing the property to be overtaken by these majestic huge beautiful tropical trees.
Here's one of the relic trees. They grow very very very slow. The ones that are 60 years old are only about 8-10" trunk girth. This one is almost 32" there's 3 total this size.
A 57-60 year view of ebony forest aged trees.
One of the 3 relics that supplied the forest of ebony
Ok enough nerding about the awesome trees. We will go over some remodel work of the temporary tortoise building.
The property had a house constructed 60 years ago. Well back then they did stuff right and big. Beside the house stands an independent garage that's 1200 square foot. So I utilized this building for the destined placed for the tortoises and s temporary setting before I constructed the welcome center and zoological house.
Gonna be multiple posts because it's so large. So be patient.