Uuugh! You can have west Texas.
You can have most of the state for that matter.
The only part of Texas I could ever see myself living in is the Hill Country.
The hill country starts in the west, traveling from New Mexico to Louisiana. The key is to find a place near a river and there are many crossing the land loaded with months long snow melt from the Rockies barreling downhill toward the Gulf of Mexico.
Some of the nicer land is near the gulf where pine wood forests still support a logging industry.
But, central parts of the state have amazing vistas and fertile areas, near Kerrville or Uvalde, San Antonio and San Marcos.
Get within about a hundred miles of the Rio Grande River and you reach flatland, absolutely laser flat for two hundred miles, including the other side of the river. That land is ancient river flood plain or delta area that is VERY fertile and grows anything that can take the heat. Obviously they grow three or four crops every year. Freezing is rare and very short lived, so brassicas or cole crops are grown in cool seasons, but they also plant alliums such as onions and garlic, which will be harvested after full maturity in the late spring.
Desert living is not for everyone, granted, but you learn what to do and they grow crops and cattle. Where I grew up is a light desert and they get way too much rain every year to be an actual desert, but it usually comes at three or four times per year.
That is why, traveling across west Texas, you see these mile long bridges crossing a dry creek bed. That is because when it DOES rain you will need that bridge to cross that creek.
My sister lives in what I call the toenails of the foothills. Just South of College Station in Navasota.
Sorry I missed this before.
I know exactly where Navasota is. One of my dad's brothers used to go to the territory searching for "Olde Timey" things to buy and resell.
It became popular to use old farm stuff to decorate restaurants and literally anything old would sell. Navasota was one of the stops he made on his rounds.
Once he came to realize he could go down into Mexico buy handmade pots for pennies, walk around in the desert and dig up cactus seedlings, pot them up and take them up north and make a small fortune (Twenty bucks for something he had a nickel in and a bit of labor to produce and gas to transport - fun labor) his antique business was done for.
Get out away from all the college areas next county over and the area is beautiful! Kind of like I mentioned earlier, find a place near a river and you are all set. The Brazos and some of it thousands of feeder tributaries are right there.
