For those of you that haven't met us, my name is Tonya, my husband's name is Jody, and we have one son Patrick, who is seven years old and goes to school in Bastrop.

It all started back in 1999. Jody was digging a tank for John and Christy Randolph. I was working for a vet clinic in Bastrop, and Jody called and said I needed to come out to Smithville where he was working, and look at their cattle during my lunch hour. I asked what kind of cattle, and he said Longhorns. I hesitated and then asked why? The only longhorns I have ever seen were roping steers at team ropings, and a few rodeo bulls that were big bad fighting bulls. I had no interest in spending my time looking at small cows with horns that weighed more than they did. He told me I was wrong, and I had to come see for myself - that these were some of the nicest cows he had ever seen. He said "Picture a Limousine cow that weighs about 1200 pounds with huge horns and a coat of many colors." (We had a limousine bull that I had really liked a few years back.) I went out, and I hated to admit it, but he was right. They were beautiful and they were nothing like I imagined. Those were some of the nicest cows I had ever seen. They were tame and not wild or unruly. Well, I fell in love with longhorns from that moment on! We went on to buy our herd sire Mr. Master Hand from the Randolphs. He's the biggest baby and extremely gentle with adults and children. I have a feeling he will be with us for the rest of his life. Don't think I will ever find another bull that I feel the same about. We also bought several cows and another young bull calf that was a TurboJet son, that Jody could not live without. I didn't think we needed two bulls -- live and learn. After that we started buying cows at some of the sales.

When we started this adventure, we were going to just buy a few longhorns cows a year. It was to be a slow transition, since we had about forty commercial cows at the time. Well, the next thing I knew Jody was selling off our commercial cattle left and right, so we could buy more longhorns. We currently have about twenty cows, three bulls, five heifers that will be having first calves and several calves that are at side. We still have a few commercial cows that we sell their calves every year. I would love to be able to show in the halter classes but with my job we aren't able to show as much as I would like to. We have been to a few shows and entered the non-haltered classes and this year we made our first world show. It was a lot of fun. We also like going to the Ranch Tours and seeing other people's stock. With this breed you never see two cows that are marked exactly the same. We can hardly wait to see the colorful new babies when they hit the ground!

We would like to thank all the people that have been kind to us since we started raising longhorns. Most of all, a Big Thank You to John and Christy Randolph for their help and support in getting us started with this wonderful breed of cattle!