This morning’s random object was a Texas Longhorn figurine. Composition came first, making sure there was enough room for the horns to stretch across without running off the edge of the page!
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Texas Longhorns are strange in the best way. They are wild cows born from feral cattle. Spaniards brought over Andalusian and Moorish stock, and when some were abandoned or escaped, they survived on their own. That was unusual, since most feral cows just die. These didn’t. They adapted with long spindly legs, dark fur, aggressive temperaments, and those huge sweeping horns. It gave them a toughness to match the arid land.
Those horns can top 90 inches across, and the record hit 130 inches in 2020. That is about 16 bananas wide, enough for a person to lie down between them. Bulls reach about two tons and cows half that, so unless you see them side by side you might not know which is which. Their lean meat was once dismissed because people wanted marbling, and the breed almost went extinct, dropping below a hundred animals. But ranchers saw their value and worked to preserve them. By the 1980s lean beef was back in style and Longhorns had a second life.
Now they are raised around the world and stand as a symbol of Texas itself. Chosen in 1995 as the state’s official large mammal, the Longhorn represents the resilience of the land and the people who call it home. For me, it was just this little plastic steer on the desk this morning, but sketching it opened the door to all that history.
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