JOHN HARVEY
Spanish Music.com
LIFE AT LA BONITA RANCH
My Grandfather would always want to go and see the cook at the La Bonita Ranch to see what he was making. He was the cook of the ranch. He had a little garden, he had it made. He said he hadn’t been to the city in 10 years. He had no intentions of going to the city. He just loved it there. He’d get up early, 3 or 4 in the morning, milk the goats, milk the cows. He had goat milk. He would make cheese, butter, buttermilk and that kind of white cheese that my Grandfather liked. He’d tell my Grandfather, “I got some cheese and butter. Now I’m going to make some Pan de Campo. I got coffee.” He had a giant coffee pot. Sometimes he would make biscuits, big biscuits. He’d tell the cowboys when they would come in, ‘Well, I got biscuits boys, pan de campo with butter. “Oh they’d say, we’re really going to eat today.” “I made some carne asada.” He cooked the meat over the fireplace, it was real delicious. He always had a big jarro of beans. Stay away from all of the guys.
They had a big fireplace. He had stuff here, stuff there, big giant fireplace that you could walk into. Like 12 feet across. He had several fires going all the way across. That took a lot of wood. The ranch hands would chop wood for him. It was one of their jobs to make sure he had enough wood because he was going to be cooking for them. Got to keep him happy, you don’t want him say “I don’t have anything for you all to eat because there wasn’t any wood.” They would find old dried pieces of wood out on the range and they’d bring it to him. They would put a rope around it and drag it back and then chop it up.
The chickens were loose all day but they went into the barn at night. He didn’t have to worry about closing it to protect the chickens. No animals would come in there because the horses and cows were in there. They had a couple of dogs that ran around. They were smart dogs. They were sheep dogs. You could tell they were smart just by how they looked at you. They think about what to do. They would be laying there and they’d see a calf straying off, they’d go, ut oh, here we go. He’d go over there and go, erh, erh. Smart dogs. So here comes the dog bringing the calf back. Then he’d come and lay down again. They would be there looking all around. They also had some of those blue dogs. They would feed the dogs cornbread with bacon or chicharones in it.
And the cook had his garden, ah his garden was enviable. My grandfather would say, “Look at his garden, look at the green peppers.” My Grandfather would say, I have to take care of my garden. He had a garden behind the house in Encinal.
Some of those guys there never got married, they never went to the city. They had another guy who drove a yellow truck with a double cab that would go into town to get groceries for the cook. He would write down what he wanted, baking soda, corn meal, salt. He would go into Cotulla to get groceries. He’d give the list to the guy and he would bring it all to the cook. They had the barn in the back where they could get eggs.
When my Grandfather would get honey, he’d bring some to the cook. “We got some honey from the Nueces River out there.” That was about 15 miles away from the ranch house. “So here you go.” A big jar of honey. “Oh, thank you I’m going to make some pan de campo and he’d put some honey on the table. He’d say, “There’s honey there boys.” They’d put some on their plates with some pan de campo. What a life. They all ate real well and they’d be ready to go work with the cows.
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