02/07/2025
When I was in the second grade, I got in trouble at school for saying that my granddaddy was my favorite toy. I didn’t mean it in a disrespectful way—I just meant he was my favorite person to spend time with.
Here’s the thing about my granddaddy: he wasn’t an easy man, but he was always good to me. Up until the day he died, he always had at least a couple of horses in the barn. As a child, I loved riding with him. We’d take long trail rides on the outskirts of Cross Plains, crossing Highway 25, heading down to the creek at Payne Bridge, and making our way back up the hill behind the house on Calista Road. My brother was often with us. Some days, we’d ride for hours without saying a word. Other times, Granddaddy would tell stories.
One day, while we were riding through a briar thicket, he must’ve been thinking about rabbit hunting, because he told me about how a rabbit, when it runs, always makes a big circle and comes back home. He said that one day, I’d do the same—I’d go out into the world, see everything there was to see, and eventually, I’d find myself back home. He told me I would make a rabbit circle.
Like most kids, I thought he was full of it. I was going to leave and never come back. I was going to go out into the world and find my fortune.
And I guess I did—right back in the place where I started.
When I found myself in Cross Plains as a single parent, trying to figure out how to survive, I had one of those contemplative moments. I was a subject matter expert in rural Robertson County, so in a moment of genius (or desperation), I created a farm tour business and called it Rabbit Circle. If people could hire private guides in other countries, why shouldn’t they be able to do the same here? I built a website, made a marketing plan, and off I went, inviting the world into my world.
I could see that the little town I grew up in was changing fast. The farms were being developed, and all of those bridle trails around Cross Plains were quickly turning into driveways and subdivision entrances. You can’t stop change. Even if you try to save your grandmother’s very best macaroni and cheese by putting it in the back of the fridge and forgetting about it, when you finally take it out, it’s transformed into something unrecognizable—and definitely not palatable.
I knew then that the best way to preserve something wasn’t to fight against time. It was to write it down, tell the story, and pass it along in a way that would lodge it firmly into someone else’s heart.
So that’s what I did. I started giving tours and telling stories in the place where my rabbit circle began.
Then COVID hit. My tour business—like so many others—came to a screeching halt. For the last couple of years, I’ve only given sporadic tours, but a few months ago, I updated my website and hung my shingle back out. And guess what? People came. A couple from Canada. A couple from New Zealand. A couple from North Dakota. They were curious about the place I call home, about our farmland, our culture, and our way of life.
And before every back road in Robertson County turns into a driveway and every restaurant becomes a chain, I’m going to try again.
I’m giving tours by appointment only.
I’m excited to welcome the world back to Robertson County—and back into my rabbit circle.
Www.rabbitcircle.com
