Lot 38

Start at the draw. It enters on the western boundary and cuts some 740 ft through the lower end of the tract before slipping out the southern line, dry through most of the summer and loud for a day or two after a hard rain, which is simply how this limestone handles weather. Trace that channel on foot and you learn how the tract sheds water. This is 53.78 acres of ranch land for sale on Alamo Ranch in Edwards County, and the draw is the first thing worth knowing about it.

The eastern half is the thick part. Cedar and scrub oak grow tight through there, with mottes of live oak standing over pale stone, and the shade beneath them holds cool when the rock is throwing heat back at you in July. Between the mottes the soil shows white and stony, the grass thin and wiry in the open stretches. Game likes that pattern: thicket to bed in, open pockets to feed through, and a dry channel at the bottom for traveling.

An existing dirt ranch road already cuts through the tract, entering at the northeast corner and bending roughly 1,650 ft to the western boundary. It reads like it was laid by someone who followed the easier contours instead of fighting them, which spares you the first hard chore on any raw tract, cutting a way in and out that a truck can handle after a wet spell. That road is an existing road and nothing more. The deed and the recorded plat govern access, so let us go over both with you before you plan a drive or a set of pens around any particular route.

The rise is 49 ft, from roughly 2,153 ft at the low end where the draw leaves to 2,202 ft at the higher corner. That isn't dramatic relief and I won't sell it as such. What it does is put dry, rocky high spots above the drainage, and on a still July afternoon the air stirs up there when it won't stir in the bottom. Stand at the upper end and the fall of the land reads plain enough.

Alamo Ranch is 4,683 acres of the Texas Hill Country plateau, rolling rises, wide valleys and dry creek bottoms, with Rocksprings the town you'd drive to for fuel and feed. Elk, turkey and dove use this ranch, as do the free-ranging exotics that have spread through this part of the state, and hogs, which need no introduction. Nobody is outfitting for pay out here. Pressure stays honest and the neighbors stay quiet.

Boundaries are surveyed. The deed rules are short, the sort that protect what a neighbor builds without telling you what color to paint the roof, and we'll hand you a copy so you can read every line yourself. Power reaches the county road and several points on the ranch, and we'll show you where the line comes in so you can take a hookup up with the co-op directly. Owner financing is offered on every tract here, and the entry can be as small as five percent.

Wear boots with a stiff sole, because the rock chews up anything soft, and pick a cool month if your schedule allows it. We'll pull in at the northeast corner, take the dirt road to the western boundary, then cut back to the bend where the draw slips off the southern line so you can see for yourself what it does when the weather has been kind.