Our El Castillo Ranch was established in 1996 and is located in the northwest corner of Lee County, about 15 miles southwest of Lexington, Texas. Ranch hands are Rod & Teresa, along with their children, Mariana and Xavier. When we purchased our 63-acre ranch, the previous owners were leasing this property for grazing to a herd of Texas Longhorns owned by the late Pat Beach and partner, Cal Monger. We became friends with the couple and continued to lease the land to CalPat Longhorns. The first two years' lease payments were made in cash, and that third year, Pat allowed us to choose a heifer from her new calf crop. That ol’ Pat got us hooked for sure!

Our first registered Longhorn cow was born on our place and was a freckled, red-headed heifer that we named Tarman's Pecosa. Before we knew it, another year went by and we were selecting another pretty heifer for the lease payment. Eventually, Cal and Pat moved their cattle off the place and our small herd started to grow. We have met a lot of good people through Cal and Pat, and learned quite a bit about the legends and traditions of the Texas Longhorn cattle.

Within a few years, our kids, Mariana and Xavier were showing in the Pee Wee division and this got us involved in exhibiting some of our cattle in haltered shows. We currently exhibit cattle in non-haltered shows across the state. We began to get involved with the STLA and TLBAA and, eventually, our pretty freckled heifer, Tarman's Pecosa, sold for $36,000 to Mountain Creek Longhorns at the Legacy II Sale in 2006. We have retained two of her great-looking heifers, for our breeding herd, Pecosa's Patricia and Blanca 103, and her steer, Perdido, is our resident trophy steer. We also have a couple of Pecosa's granddaughters, Victoria 401 and La Reyna Isabella in our herd.

In November 2006, El Castillo Ranch purchased a young bull, El Muy Bueno ECR, from the El Coyote Ranch in south Texas. Our new herd sire is a red and white genetic “gold mine” with outstanding sires in his pedigree like Emperor, Phenomenon, Don Julio, Houston Solution, and VJ Tommie. We like lots of horn on our cattle and the addition of the El Coyote genetics to our herd will surely add confirmation, temperament, pretty color, and of course “horn.” “El Muy's” first calves have started to arrive this spring, bringing about high expectations from all of the ranch hands.

In addition to raising Texas Longhorn cattle, Rod and Teresa maintain full-time jobs. Rodney is the Director of Recruiting with Titan Solutions in Austin, and Teresa teaches 8th grade American History at Lamar Middle School in Austin. She also currently serves on the STLA Board of Directors.

We have met a lot of good people and developed many great friendships in the Texas Longhorn business. We look forward to watching our herd grow as we work to expand our breeding program.