Bohemian Bounty has increased its acreage! We have been working for a year now reviving and rebuilding the local family farm outside of Granger Texas. The soils are becoming alive again thanks to compost tea and animal grazing. The diversity of wildlife expands every season and we now have ring-tailed cats visiting.
Our goal is to offer local orchard fruits and local lamb just as Grandpa and Grandma had. You can contact us at info@bohemianbounty.com.
Bohemian Bounty Bios
Jennifer Mandel-Buratti – Owner
South Texas is known for its warm weather, fertile growing conditions, and close-knit families. Growing up in Corpus Christi and weekends on the family farm in Alice, Jennifer experienced all those things first hand. We recently unearthed 8mm video of her older brother, no more than two years old at the time, getting a ride on the family tractor perched happily on dad’s lap. While we have no such incriminating video of Jennifer we know for a fact she also got dirty chasing the farm’s chickens, turkeys, and her own fluffy rabbits. [Photo By: Brianne Corn]
Fast forward to college where Jennifer studied botany, wildlife management, range management, and ornithology. Her years in graduate school built on her basic biology education and added parks and protected places, water resource protection, tourism, and interpretation. Jen’s education continued to draw her outdoors and she spent several seasons as National Park Service Ranger in Texas and Colorado.
Jennifer’s passion for hands-on biology work drew her back to her roots – farming and ranching. Through Bohemian Bounty Jennifer hopes to share her family’s teachings, traditions, and her education with Central Texans.
Jen is a former board member of the Texas Organic Farmer and Gardeners Association and 2015 graduation of Holistic Management International’s Women in Ag – Beginning Farmer program. Her mentor is Lauri Cellela of Dry Creek Livestock.
James Buratti – Owner
James is a 5th generation Texan and native Austinite who spent weekends and vacations on his grandparent’s farm just north of Taylor. To his mother, who grew up doing farm chores, the farm meant work. But to a kid, it was a place to play in the creeks and ponds, walk the railroad tracks, run around with his cousins, and generally get very, very dirty.
There was always a huge family garden and his Czech grandfather in it sampling everything that he grew. Different seasons meant different harvesting events. Spring meant fresh veggies and canning peaches, pears, and even apricots. The kids would scour the creekside for fresh dewberries (think native blackberries) for eating, pies, and jam. Early summer and in autumn again the potatoes came out of the ground and were stored in the tractor shed on chicken-wire racks between layers of old newspaper. Then there was the shelling of peas from foot-long pea pods. Fall brought on the pecan crop and James made many a year’s Christmas gift money gathering nuts then selling them at the Circleville store by the tow-sack full. Winter was time to make sauerkraut and the chicken coop was temporarily turned into a smokehouse for the venison and pork sausage.
Even at home in northeast Austin James’ dad always had a garden, as did his dad. Most of the lawn was carpet grass, but the section in the back that got full sun held the garden. James doesn’t remember wanting to eat his veggies as a kid but he loved watering the garden and growing them!
James attended college was at Texas A&M University and later grad school at The Ohio State University. Both degrees were in natural resources management and he’s trained as an ecologist. His own gardening began when he bought a small house with a big yard. It’s just what you do with a yard, right? Grow veggies! He recently completed a Ph.D. in Environmental Geography studying – you guessed it – local food. Or rather, what makes local food “local”.
James and Jen outgrew their garden and backyard chickens – adding a herd of Dorper sheep, Cheviot sheep, and 7 acres of land near the San Gabriel River. James continues to expand the orchard on the rolling hillside of the family farm and hopes to add cattle in the years to come.