August 5th, 2024
Sustaining the Dream: How Bobbi Smith’s Agritourism Venture Revived an East Texas Ranch
By Eva Morgan and Amanda Henderson
When Bobbi Smith arrived in Texas, it was the culmination of a lifelong dream to farm. She was returning from seven years in Afghanistan, where she worked as a Civil Affairs Officer and contractor with the Army. During this time, she worked with Afghan communities building schools, windmills, and roads, and also helped revitalize their agricultural sector. At the same time, Bobbi was saving all she could with the intention of buying her own piece of land once she returned to the States.
In 2014, she purchased 113 acres in East Texas, just 65 miles northeast of downtown Dallas. It was a patchwork of woodland and pastures with a beautiful five-acre lake. The weeds had overgrown and the fences were falling down, but the land was much more affordable than land in her native California. She named it the Rockin’ Bar B Ranch and set to work building roads, clearing brush, and building fences in preparation for a cow herd.
Bobbi’s ranch is in the Post Oak Savannah ecoregion of North Texas, near where the towering pine forests of the southeast transition to the Great Plains. Most of the open land in the area has now been converted to bermudagrass pastures for cattle, but remnants of the native grasses and wildflowers exist along fence lines and in fields. Oak trees dominated the woodlands, and Bobbi observed how the acorns attracted deer and wild hogs. The same wildlife also frequented the pastures where she began running her cow herd. When a neighbor commented that duck hunters might be interested in the flocks of ducks that swam in her lake, she started doing some research.
Raising cattle can be an uncertain income stream, buffeted by swings in the market, uncertain weather patterns, and ever-rising input costs. Considering all of this, Bobbi realized that she could add a less volatile income stream to her farm by tapping into the blossoming sector of agritourism, transforming her land into something that could also be used for recreation. Bobbi’s proximity to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and the ecological richness of her farm could create a unique opportunity both for herself and for visitors that might want to immerse themselves in rural life. So, Bobbi started cultivating relationships with hunters interested in long-term leases who shared her land ethic and had a mutual interest in maintaining healthy game populations. In addition to a duck lease, she now leases to bow hunters during deer season and hosts wild hog hunters as well.
American Farmland Trust entered Bobbi’s life during the second consecutive year of drought in Texas in 2023. The water levels in the lake had been slowly dropping after a culvert feeding the lake had washed out during torrential rains, with the continuing drought causing the lake to dry up completely. She watched as the beavers decamped and birds picked the last fish out of what little water remained. Her agritourism revenue streams were also vanishing, so she applied for a grant from AFT’s Brighter Future Fund.
The Brighter Future Fund, launched by AFT in 2020, is a grant program designed to assist farmers in successfully starting, growing, and sustaining their farms and ranches in the face of forces impacting the food and agricultural system. AFT is committed to the success of Texas agriculture and saw that a strategic intervention could make all the difference on Bobbi’s ranch. With the grant’s support, Bobbi reinstalled culverts to redirect runoff into the lake and installed a pipeline that continuously siphons water from a pond that was undersized and often overflowed. Through these simple farmer-engineered, farmer-implemented solutions, the lake is refilling. Though it’s not yet full, the ducks have returned, as have the hunters and the campers. Bobbi has restocked fish and mussel populations and is watching her world come back to life.
In addition to the leases, she also started renting out small cabin and tent camping sites through web platforms like Hipcamp, tapping into a growing interest for sustainable and authentic travel experiences that connect campers with private landowners willing to host them. Far from the stress of busy cities and crowded tourist spots, it provides options for travelers seeking meaningful interactions with local communities and the natural world. Campers who choose to camp on a farm are also usually looking for a deeper understanding of the food they eat and the land from which it comes. At Bobbi’s ranch, campers enjoy a secluded campsite and can get involved with daily life on the farm. “When I heard a HipCamp visitor state to me while I was showing them the farm’s cabin, ‘You’re living the dream,’ I smiled and realized that my journey had just begun,” Bobbi reflected.
As you walk through Bobbi’s land, you notice the interplay between wild and cultivated spaces. She mows walking trails through the woods and manicures the campsites while keeping the pastures a little wild. She chooses not to spray her pastures for weeds to encourage the growth of native species, but she shreds areas to keep the woody plants at bay. She was forced to sell her cattle herd due to the spike in hay prices, but the pastures are rebounding from the drought and will be ready to receive livestock again soon. As the land regains life, the beavers have returned, but their industriousness threatens to put some of her prime pastures underwater. As a result, dealing with beaver dams is a constant task on her to-do list.
Maintaining the balance between wild and tame on working land is a never-ending task. As she puts it, “The habit of delayed satisfaction is a background to which I am no stranger.” However, Bobbi recognizes that managing for diversity fosters stability, both in the ecosystem and on the ranch’s balance sheet. As she looks ahead towards reintroducing livestock and expanding her gardens and homestead, she will continue to seek out ways to increase her ranch’s viability so that this piece of land can stay together and stay productive.