Our cottage; a dog with antlers

By Bebe and Sissy Fenstermaker

My great grandfather had a Mister Sidensnour build the Cottage in 1907. Along with the Barn and other frame outbuildings, it marks the beginning of the Mavericks here at the Ranch. Mr. Sidensnour lived down on the road to San Antonio just west of Camp Bullis. Our Aunt Mary told us where he had lived and it turned out to be a house with outbuildings we had always noticed. I had the habit of admiring that frame home with a pretty front porch and doorway. It was a fine place to see each time, marking a special point to look forward to on the road. One night, driving to a graduate class in a rainstorm, I saw the house in flames. It was a shocking, sad, terrible sight. That happened about 1977. The outbuildings and cypress water tank remained for a long time until a subdivision swept them away. Even so, I still sense the essence of the old place when I pass by.
Our Cottage is a much simpler building than Mr. Sidensnour's home, simple and very pleasant. Its proportions are ample and it was placed perfectly to catch the southeast breeze. Now huge live oaks shade it in all but the mid-morning hours. The only addition is the back room and bathroom added in the forties in order to keep the cold north wind from coming right into the house through the back door. The house is not insulated so it does get quite cold in winter. I light the propane heater in the bathroom on bad nights and keep all the spent matches so I can tell how many freezing nights we have each winter. We average ten to 15. In the early Maverick days cousins from Chicago came to spend the winter and lived in the Cottage. They were miserably cold (for northerners) and the father decided something must be done. He had the bright idea to haul manure and pile it all around the foundation for warmth. Great idea but he neglected to use thoroughly composted manure. The family nearly choked to death on the fumes of fresh, rotting stuff. All their lives those children recalled that extra hard winter.
The Cottage is peacefully quiet although the road to the Ranch houses goes right by it. Sound travels away rather than into the house. The geese can make a big racket outside the gate; they can be heard all over except in the Cottage. Only the breeze and sometimes a little wren sail through. I found her nest up on a ceiling fan this last fall and hesitate to use it until our electrician checks it out.
We had so much rain last summer some kind of black mold appeared in a corner of the living room. Probably some bleach would have taken care of it but the insurance company insisted we go through the dreaded "black mold operation." Operation it was, for a company was sent to tear out that part of the wall and run a machine to kill every spore. Ah, the pitfalls and baloney of the black mold removal companies. They came, literally wrapped up the room, tore out a wall, and ran their machine night and day for two weeks. Then we found that the insurance covered only the destruction but not restoration and were left with quite a mess to handle on our own. It was a racket. That was our first and only claim ever but the insurance company had the nerve to cancel the policy as soon as the work was "finished."
These days our writing business, book compiling work, family paper work, and the saddles reside in the Cottage. Sissy hauled the saddles out of the tack room in the Barn after a rock squirrel made nests in our woolen saddle blankets. She was pretty mad. Odds and ends decorate the walls and cabinets. There is a collection of old license plates, a pile of paperback westerns, bones of one of our sheep which the dogs insist on bringing in, and the overflow ollas and vases from the Kitchen House. Uncle Clarence's framed picture of dogs playing cards, a long postcard of cattle from Europe, and posters announcing a bar-b-q in Boerne and a fiesta in Zuazua, N.L. decorate the wall. Our collection of native plant books stand ready for reference on a kitchen cabinet. The fax machine/answering machine also lives in the kitchen. A door painted Maverick Ranch blue opens out to a view of the corrals. I can watch the cows and write at the same time. Pretty good for a house nearly one hundred years old.

Bebe Fenstermaker

Bebe and I were driving through a nearby subdivision the other day and saw a sight that made us chuckle. In the distance, we saw two dogs ambling along the side of the road. One was wearing what looked like a brace. However, as we drew up along side them, the "brace" became a beautiful skull, with antlers, of a whitetail buck. The dog with the skull looked so proud of his prize. We surmised a couple scenarios: someone left the handsome wall ornament in a vulnerable spot or the result of cleaning out after a heated divorce.
On a recent chilly October morning the dogs, one cat, and I were out looking for whatever caught our interest. Actually, I was looking for a particular shin oak that I had gathered acorns from a couple of weeks before. I couldn't say exactly what my companions were looking for, probably whatever smell caught their fancy. A raucous chorus of frog songs coming from the creek on such a cloudy, chilly day surprised me. I didn't find the tree I was looking for but settled for a couple of old bottles from one of the "trash" (treasure?) spots to take back. I rounded up the cat and dogs and we headed back to the house. We passed Genevieve and her various children and grandchildren who had followed us looking for tasty morsels along the way.
Derek Muschalek is a self-taught butterfly expert a group of us non-experts trailed behind for several hours gleaning as much information from him as we could. I think what I especially enjoyed about him was his enthusiasm whenever he caught sight of a butterfly, bird, dragonfly, or nectar plant of the former. One can drag a butterfly's common name out of him occasionally but he is more apt to identify the creatures using their scientific name. Derek is a farmer from around Yorktown and is well known around the state for his expertise with butterflies. I found he was as knowledgeable about birds and plants. He was headed to the Mission Butterfly Festival the following weekend where I gather he is a welcomed regular. The Cibolo Nature Center is making him a regular to the Boerne area to the delight of many.

Sissy Fenstermaker