Touring the Ranch with Laura Bush

Gordon Johndroe for NPR

First lady Laura Bush at the ranch in Crawford, Texas.

» More Photos of the Bush Ranch

Susan Feeney, NPR

Bluebonnets, the Texas state flower, grow on the Bush ranch.

President Bush's top getaway, his ranch in Crawford, Texas, is also the place where Laura Bush seems to find the most solace. NPR's Ketzel Levine gets a rare tour of the ranch with the first lady, who discusses her efforts to restore native grasses and plants to part of the 1,600-acre property.

Levine describes the Bushes' three-year-old ranch house as "a contemporary, lean and low-slung building, made of glass and honey-colored stone. All around it, where we're standing, wind bends the buffalo grass, and reckless spills of wildflowers puddle along the ground."

Mrs. Bush says she feels "very fortunate" to have a place to get away. "There's something in a way that is reassuring about being outside and working in the garden," she says, "and that is that time does pass and that life will go on and that all of us, everyone who lives here on earth, has this beautiful earth to live on and to seek solace with when we're outside."