The Departments
Six seals, six sections of responsibility. The station is small — mostly one family and its friends — but the structure is real: it makes the work legible, hands it off cleanly and keeps the records honest.
Office of the Steward
The station’s front office and final signature. The Steward’s Office holds the master record — the grants, agreements, budgets and this journal — and decides what the station takes on next. Every other department reports through it, and everything published here leaves under its seal.
Forestry & Fire
Keeper of the woody side of the restoration: the shelterbelt, the mottes, the river-edge plantings and the propagation bench that supplies them all. It runs seed collection and cuttings, raises the stock, and will hold the drip torch when prescribed fire returns to this ground as a management tool.
Water & Power
Everything that flows or charges, on ground that has never had running water or electricity. Its docket is the long infrastructure work: planning the water well, bringing a public water utility connection to the property, and building out off-grid solar generation to power the station — plus a small weather station keeping the property’s own record of rain, heat and wind. Until the big pieces land, its daily charge is the hard one — getting water where it’s needed through a Central Texas summer.
Wildlife Affairs
Speaks for the animals the restoration is for. It watches the birds, deer, pollinators and river life as habitat returns — running the trail cameras, the counts, and the AI bird-listening program that identifies species by song around the clock — and manages pressure from the species that take more than their share, the feral pigs above all. Its measure of success is plain: more quail, more dove, more song in the grass.
Agriculture & Grazing
Manages the working acres through their long conversion — the standing Tifton hay that still carries an income, the burndown and no-till drilling of the native mix, and the soil record underneath all of it. Once the prairie is established, its work turns to timed grazing and the rhythm of cutting and rest that keeps a grassland honest.
Hospitality
Keeper of the cabin and the welcome. It maintains the buildings and the campsites, feeds the crew, hosts tours of the restoration, and looks after everyone who comes down to swim, fish or work a season. The oldest department in spirit — Short’s Resort has been receiving guests since the sign was first painted.