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 front office. The Steward’s Office keeps the master record — grants, agreements, budgets, this journal — and decides what the station takes on next. Everything else reports through it, and everything we publish goes out under its seal.
Forestry & Fire
The woody side of the restoration — the shelterbelt, the mottes, the river-edge plantings, and the propagation bench that feeds them. It runs seed collection and cuttings, raises the stock, and will be the one holding the drip torch when we bring prescribed fire back as a management tool.
Water & Power
Everything that flows or charges, on ground that’s never had running water or electricity. The long list is the infrastructure: a water well, a public-utility water connection, and off-grid solar to run the station — plus a small weather station keeping our own record of rain, heat and wind. Until the big pieces land, the daily job is the hard one: getting water where it’s needed through a Central Texas summer.
Wildlife Affairs
The animals are the whole point, and this is who watches them — birds, deer, pollinators, river life — as the habitat comes back. It runs the trail cameras, the counts, and the AI bird-listening program that IDs species by song around the clock. It also handles the animals that take more than their share, feral pigs first. The scorecard is simple: more quail, more dove, more song in the grass.
Agriculture & Grazing
Runs the working acres through their long conversion — the standing Tifton hay that still brings in money, the burndown and no-till drilling of the native mix, and the soil record under all of it. Once the prairie’s established, the job shifts to timed grazing and the cut-and-rest rhythm that keeps a grassland honest.
Hospitality
The cabin and the welcome. It keeps up the buildings and campsites, feeds the crew, runs tours of the restoration, and looks after anyone who comes down to swim, fish, or work a season. The oldest department in spirit — Short’s Resort has been having people over since the sign first went up.