Coming Full Circle

When David Garza stands next to his wife, Stephanie, and gazes upon the land that they have sculpted into a fine ranch, having started from virtually nothing, he feels he has come home.

The Double G is located just south of Gonzales, Texas, and abuts the Guadalupe River. The Garzas have a large garden, raise cattle and are in a perpetual battle with the thirsty mesquite trees that have taken root  on their land.

It’s a working ranch, which requires a very different set of skills than  those he and Stephanie employ in their day jobs: he is a cardiologist who works in Austin; she is a gynecologist who works at a clinic in Gonzales.

This place is a tribute to Dr. Garza’s father, who “scratched out a living” dry land farming in Hidalgo County, Texas.

As he rambles across his property in a beat-up old truck that, from all appearances, shouldn’t be up to the task, Dr. Garza finds pleasure in the success of his mission to implement sustainable beef production processes and to restore the native grasses on the once over-grazed property. He finds solace in the trees that shade the river bottoms. He wants to do his Daddy proud. “Put me here at the Double G, with a chain saw and some land to plow . . . I hope I learned enough from my father to do it well.”