Home Care In Bandera, TX

John Meaney says Beau and Malley have been vital in improving his mental well-being and assisting him with everyday tasks.

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BANDERA, Texas — A U.S. Navy veteran in Bandera is calling on the community to be on the lookout for his two dogs. He says he suspects they were stolen last month.

John Meaney depends on the help he gets from his furry companions, Beau and Malley. Beau, a German Shepherd, is a certified service dog, while Malley, a Belgian Malinois, is a pure ball of comfort.

“Beau helps me out, or he did. Carrying groceries and stuff, he’d open the door for me and turn around and close it. Malley, she’s a trip. She was just a lover,” Meaney said.

But now, this Bandera man is on a desperate mission to bring them home. He suspects Beau and Malley escaped through a hole in the fence that lines his property off the 700 block of Optimist Way in Bandera.

“Saturday morning, March 2, and every day is a normal day, and I let them outside to go do their business and they never came back,” Meaney said.

With the help of friends and community members, he’s spread the word in person and online about his dogs’ disappearance. Meaney has followed up on numerous apparent sightings but with no success of getting any closer to locating Beau and Malley.

“I got great friends out there that were calling me and tipping me every chance they got, everything they heard of saw,” Meaney said.

While he’s waiting for answers, Meaney’s hanging out with his newest buddy Frank, whom he adopted after Beau and Malley disappeared.

“Come here, puppy. Franko, he’s a good boy. Frank, Frank really helps.”

Meaney is offering a $500 reward for information leading to finding and returning his dogs.

“You just gotta have something to take care of, you gotta have something to love. That’s why we’re here, I think, and for somebody to take that, it’s just evil.”

So many rodeo champions hail from Bandera County that the monument on the courthouse lawn has no more room for names on its bronze plaque. A small town about an hour’s drive northwest of San Antonio, Bandera beckons folks with other sorts of cowboy dreams too. It inspired Robert Earl Keen, who moved here in the late eighties after a disappointing stint in Nashville, to start writing songs again. Tourists come for the staged gunfights behind the visitors center on Saturday afternoons. And just down Main Street from the legendary Arkey Blue’s Silver Dollar honky-tonk, a couple has built a business by giving the cowboy treatment to a simple ingredient.

Daniel and Andrew Almand launched Texas Salt Co. three years ago after creating a briny blend to give to friends and family at the holidays, continuing a tradition of homemade presents the two men, who married in 2013, began early in their relationship. They cold-smoked sea salt flakes for a week over pecan wood in a smoker they built themselves and then infused them with garlic and fresh rosemary. They called their creation Cowboy Salt because it adds a campfire-esque finish to beef, chicken, and other meats. Experiments with new flavor combinations soon followed.

Rarely seen these days without their boots and hats, the Almands opened their first storefront in November 2022 after moving to Bandera from Belton, south of Waco. They now sell more than fifty kinds of sea salts—including their Bourbon Barrel blend and flakes seasoned with ingredientssuch as saffron, scorpion pepper, and white truffle—as well as about two dozen varieties of peppercorns. The Cowboy Salt by far remains their best-seller, so they work to keep pace with the demand. “If I produced two tons of it, I could sell two tons of it,” Andrew says.

The store draws both locals and tourists, who can sample and smell the different salts and peppers. Some shoppers come looking for gifts for the men in their lives—“Guys love to smoke things,” Daniel says. But the Almands also have tapped into a wider trend, with more home cooks reaching for boutique “finishing” salts to enhance the flavor of a dish.

In the next few years, they plan to open more pop-and-pop shops around Texas. For now, they’ll continue to make their salts and peppers in their adopted hometown. This month they’re moving their manufacturing and retail operations into a 2,100-square-foot building across from another beloved Bandera watering hole—the 11th Street Cowboy Bar, where horses are often parked next to motorcycles. It’s a town for all seasonings.

Finishing School

Beer Salt

Order a beer at a bar in Bandera, and you might be asked if you’d like it “dressed.” In other words: Do you want salt on the rim? Texas Salt Co.’s beer salts, which come in flavors including plain, jalapeño, and sriracha, zest up even the most common ales. They also give life to micheladas and Mexican martinis. Simply run a lime around the edge of a glass and mash the rim onto a plate scattered with the salt of your choice. Andrew and Daniel Almand also sell cocktail salts, including Triple Heat, a “careful blend” of ground ghost peppers, habaneros, and jalapeños.

Cowboy Bread Dip

Inspired by the dipping oil at the Carrabba’s Italian Grill chain, the Cowboy Bread Dip is a blend of pecan-smoked salt and seasonings including basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, sun-dried tomatoes, and thyme. Add a tablespoon to a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil, let sit for thirty minutes, then serve with warm bread.

Cowboy Salt

Give steaks that smoked flavor by drizzling the meat with olive oil, seasoning generously with the Cowboy Salt and Cowboy Peppercorn blends, and letting it reach room temperature for thirty minutes. For medium-rare steaks, the Almands recommend cooking cuts that are an inch thick or more in a medium-hot skillet or on the grill for four and a half minutes on one side and four on the other. Cover with foil and let rest for five minutes.

This article originally appeared in the March 2024 issue of Texas Monthly. Subscribe today.

A group of Bandera County landowners are suing a major solar power and battery developer over its plan to build a solar farm, saying they are concerned it could cause environmental harm and reduce their property values.

Pine Gate Renewables wants to build the 123-megawatt solar farm on privately owned land near Montague Lake on both sides of FM 3240, and the company says it could power 22,800 homes. But roughly a dozen neighbors are worried it could create “enormously detrimental environmental issues,” according to the lawsuit filed in late December.

“We don’t want them to break ground until we know that they’re protecting the environment,” said Jennifer Rosenblatt, the attorney representing the landowners. “We’re not telling you you can’t build. We’re just telling you you’ve got to do it right.”

RELATED: Bandera — the Hill Country town that showed true grit and said no to corporate welfare

Removing native vegetation and soil erosion resulting from regrading properties could increase runoff and cause chemicals to flow into nearby wells, creeks and aquifers, polluting the water and flooding their properties, the suit states. The plaintiffs also are concerned about the risk of fire in the rural county and construction interfering with some of their businesses, which include a livestock operation, a exotic animal farm and a bed-and-breakfast.

Pine Gate Renewables is based in Asheville, N.C. Its solar farm has been in the works for over a year, at least.

Preconstruction work is underway, and little information has been shared with the landowners, which is what prompted them to sue, Rosenblatt said. They want Pine Gate to outline plans for managing water and vegetation, hazardous waste and chemicals, erosion control and fire response, and to commission a geotechnical engineering report on the karst terrain in the area.

“Just show us that you’re doing what you’re supposed to do,” Rosenblatt said.

The landowners are seeking more than $1 million in damages. A judge signed a temporary restraining order, and a hearing on a temporary injunction is scheduled this week.

“Pine Gate Renewables is aware of the complaint related to Rio Lago Solar and remains committed to the project’s development and construction. However, the company does not discuss ongoing legal matters,” a spokesperson said.

The company was founded in 2016 and operates more than 100 solar facilities nationwide, according to its website. It has more than 30 gigawatts of projects in development, including 40 projects in Texas representing 8,260 megawatts.

Pine Gate says on its website that the Bandera solar farm represents a $150 million investment, with construction expected to begin this year and be completed next year.

RELATED: Texas adds record amount of battery storage to grid — and more is on the way

In 2022, an affiliate of the company sought property tax breaks from Bandera Independent School District through a state program known as Chapter 313. The school board rejected its application.

It’s unclear exactly how many acres the solar farm would occupy. The suit says it would comprise about 1,825 acres across multiple properties, while it’s previously been described in news reports as encompassing 1,000 acres. A portion will be leased from a pair of property owners, who are named as defendants in the suit. Pine Gate is also under contract to buy land on which it plans to build a substation, according to the complaint.

The solar panels will be surrounded by a wildlife-friendly fence and vegetative buffer, with a 50-foot setback from the property line. Pine Gate says on its website that it “works with landowners and local groups to preserve and protect the land, while maintaining the natural look and feel of the area.” The solar farm will not produce harmful emissions, and the panels won’t emit noise.

The company also states that it “believes, and numerous studies indicate, that solar farms do not have a direct negative impact on the values of adjacent homes or properties.”

The solar farm would be in the service area of Bandera Electric Cooperative Inc., a distribution service and transmission service provider.

Under Texas law, the cooperative must interconnect facilities with new power sources, said John Padalino, its general counsel and chief administrative officer. Pine Gate requested that its proposed facility be connected with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, region, Padalino said. He directed questions about the project to Pine Gate.

As demand for power in Texas rises, more solar projects are being built. Solar power and battery storage facilities make up the largest percentage of power projects in ERCOT’s queue awaiting approval to be added to the grid.

Actors playing a frustrated landowner and the town sheriff are seen in the video having a heated and hilarious exchange.

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SAN ANTONIO — A hilarious TikTok video being shared widely is bringing national attention to the Cowboy Capital of the World, Bandera, Texas.

Actors playing a frustrated landowner and the town sheriff are seen in the video having a heated and humorous exchange in the middle of the busy Old Spanish Trail Restaurant (or O.S.T). They seem to be arguing over cattle being moved onto the landowner's property.

Things get even more tense when the waitress tells them to take their dispute outside. She uses a whip to chase them out of the restaurant, while the patrons errupt in applause.

The actors did such a realistic job acting out the skit that TikTok users were stumped as to whether this was a real argument or not. Others famliar with the town jumped in to clarify that it was definitely a skit.

At last check, the video, posted by TikTok user @roughstockmom had more than 1.3 million views, 46,000 comments and 1,500 shares.

See the full TikTok below:

@roughstockmom

#banderatexas #ostrestaurant #texas #bandera

? original sound - Mindi Hauck

The actors are part of the group Western Heritage Gunfighters, who perform regularly in different places in Bandera. The performance adds even more charm to the town known as the Cowboy Capital of the World for its Old West culture and dude ranches.

The restaurant featured in the video, O.S.T, has been serving customers since 1921 and is the oldest continuously operated restaurant in Bandera County. It's been featured in several national and state publications for its chicken-fried steak and Tex-Mex food. It also has a John Wayne Room and see many pictures of “Duke” and other cowboys and celebrities.

On Feb. 7, a Bandera judge signed a temporary injunction preventing construction from moving forward without regulatory plans in place

BANDERA COUNTY, Texas – UPDATE 4/3/24: Almost a month after a Bandera judge signed a temporary injunction preventing construction on a large solar project, he’s now ruling that order must be followed.

According to court records, on March 27, 2024, Judge Pat Maguire heard a motion from the landowners’ council for contempt and a request for emergency relief.

In his ruling, Maguire ordered Pine Gate Renewables, LLC and Rio Lago Solar, LLC to be sanctioned $10,000. However, that payment will not be required if a list of conditions is met.

If those conditions aren’t met, the defendants listed in the lawsuit will be required to pay the $10,000 sanctions immediately to the plaintiffs.

The court found that we had not fully complied with our stormwater management plan for the project. These incidents were inadvertent and, as reflected in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s report on its inspection of the site, limited and inconsequential. As envisioned by our stormwater management plan, these types of incidents can occur in the course of any large development project, which is why we have best management practices in place to protect water quality. We take compliance seriously and will adhere with the court’s directive that we redouble our efforts to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future. We welcome oversight of our work on the site by Plaintiff’s engineer, as required by the court’s order.

Kristen McKenzie, Pine Gate Renewables

A fight is continuing in Bandera County over the construction of a solar farm.

Pine Gate Renewables, a North Carolina-based company, is leasing thousands of acres to build over a million solar panels.

According to its website, the project will be called Rio Lago Solar.

Court battle

In January, the landowners surrounding the Rio Lago Solar Project site met before 198th District Court Judge Pat Maguire with their lawyers to argue why the proposed project would harm their properties.

The prosecution reiterated that their clients did not want the project stopped. However, they wanted assurance that proper protocols would be followed so the community wouldn’t suffer.

The defense argued a temporary injunction and the existing temporary restraining order were unnecessary because the proposed project was legal.

Each side brought in its own set of experts.

On Feb. 7, Judge Maguire signed a temporary injunction, halting the construction of the solar farm until certain parameters are met by Pine Gate Renewables.

The following are those parameters:

Both parties will need to meet for mediation before May 1, 2024, and a jury trial is currently set for October 22, 2024, at 9 a.m., according to court records.

Landowners vs solar company

“Day one, we had trespassing, we had property damage. And now we’re building a secondary road against a court order, in my opinion. And so, we’re starting off on the wrong foot,” said Andrew Boger, a landowner named in the court records.

Despite the temporary injunction explicitly preventing Pine Gate Renewables from preparing land for its proposed solar project, our KSAT drone caught movement on the property.

“There’s a road being built this morning,” Boger said.

Kristen McKenzie, the director of government and external affairs for Pine Gate Renewables, sent a statement in response to work happening on the land they’re leasing.

“Pine Gate has yet to remove any trees on the property. Pre-construction work has begun on the project in compliance with the court order – this work includes staging equipment and surveying for the installation of silt fencing. Project-specific timbering is expected to begin within the week after best management practices (BMPs) are installed as part of the overall timbering plan. The road-grading and associated timbering activity that has been reported is unrelated to the Rio Lago Solar Project and is not being performed by or on behalf of Pine Gate or the Rio Lago Solar Project.”

Kristen McKenzie, Pine Gate Renewables

Boger and other neighbors have been following the movement on the property closely, often taking videos of equipment on the move and calling local law enforcement to respond to what they allege is a blatant disregard for a court order.

Boger believes the solar company is not being honest or transparent about what its plans are for the thousands of acres of land its leasing and for the construction of over a million solar panels.

“I think a solid set of engineering plans just presented to the agencies would have made this all go away,” he said.

Sandra Nevels’ property is surrounded by the land destined to be used for the solar project on three sides. She’s also one of the plaintiffs listed in the suit alongside Boger.

The day the temporary injunction was signed by the judge, Nevels recorded a video of the company bringing heavy machinery onto the property.

“Felt like they weren’t, you know, abiding by the law. So what makes me think that they’re going to do it right?” Nevels questioned.

The Bandera County Sheriff’s Office was called to the property that day.

According to law enforcement records, landowner Jeff Nanos did not want the company using his gate or his easement road for access to the property.

Nanos filed a report for trespassing. In it, he states the use of the easement road is exclusively permitted outside of his use for a nearby landowner, and the solar company did not have permission to access it.

McKenzie sent a statement regarding the report.

“The company has not accessed public or private land without permission. The use of the road was done with the easement holder’s approval.”

Kristen McKenzie, Pine Gate Renewables

Nevels says she believes the equipment was brought to the land because the company is doing work that it is not allowed to do yet, per the court’s latest ruling.

“That equipment costs money to have it just sitting there. It was crazy,” Nevels said.

KSAT 12 News stopped by the Bandera County Engineer, Permits, and Inspections Department. It confirmed a development permit was issued to Pine Gate Renewables for the Rio Lago Solar Project site.

County engineer Dieter Warner didn’t want to go on camera but sat down to speak about the permitting process.

Warner gave us a copy of what the permit application looks like. He explained not much can be done on his end to stop the issuance if the company meets the permitting requirements.

KSAT Investigates reporter Leigh Waldman asked Warner if he had been presented with any construction or water runoff prevention plans to apply for the permits.

“No, but I’ve been asking for it for almost a year,” Warner said. He went on to explain that he’s seen a preliminary plan, but not a final plan.

Warner also explained that the company will need to follow state and federal requirements throughout the building process in order to ensure it is done properly.

When asked about the permit, McKenzie sent a statement.

“The permit was obtained to comply with local requirements. The company has fulfilled the District Court of Bandera County’s requirements, and pre-construction of the Rio Lago Solar Project has begun in compliance with the Court Order.”

Kristen McKenzie, Pine Gate Renewables

“I’m worried for our community that they’re just going to walk over us,” Nevels said.

“I believe now this (is) becoming a much larger issue than just the solar field in Bandera. I think it’s becoming a county issue for the counties of Texas,” Boger said.

Requests by KSAT for an interview with Pine Gate Renewables have been ignored.

As our crew was leaving the property next to the Rio Lago Solar site, the Bandera County Sheriff’s Office was called out because the people on the Pine Gate property were upset about our drone flying overhead.

“Good job there, lady,” one man said as we recorded video driving away.

Flying drones over property is not illegal or prohibited per the Federal Aviation Administration regulations.

The lawyer representing the landowners filed a motion for Pine Gate Renewables and its attorneys to be held in contempt of court for failure to comply with the temporary injunction. They’re asking the court to step in and issue additional orders.

At this point, the judge has called for an emergency hearing in March.

The lawyer also filed an emergency motion to enforce the temporary injunction with the court on Feb. 22.

Court records allege the defense, Pine Gate Renewables, “blatantly failed and refused to comply” with the temporary injunction and is asking the court to issue an emergency order enjoining the defendants from any further construction or activities on the property.

The motion continues asking that a third-party compliance officer be appointed and for the defense to allow the plaintiff’s expert, a civil engineer, to have access to the leased property.

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