HOLEY ROCK: THE KEY TO CLARITY

If you've ever wondered what makes the water in the Blue Hole so crystal clear, it is this stuff here -- karst limestone. I always thought I was so cute and clever, dubbing it Holey Rock, but when I stumbled across this sign along the Blue Hole hike & bike the other day, I realized I wasn't quite as original as I thought.

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I first heard about it years ago, before I even lived here. There's an Austin landscape architect named Jill Nokes, who wrote a book called How to Grow Native Plants of Texas and the Southwest. That book was like my bible when I was back in school taking a propagation class. Anywho, one day I'm flipping through a gardening magazine, and there's Jill Nokes, big as life, standing next to the most amazing garden wall I've ever seen. They'd built their arched entryway from this karst stone, imbedding various little treasures in the process. What really tickled me though, was that people just walking by on the street were so inspired by it that they began pausing to tuck little trinkets of their own into the various nooks and crannies. How cool is that? It was through Jill that I learned of another Austin landscaper/artist named Berthold Haas, and the amazing sculptures he has created throughout the Hill Country using karst stone -- like this Grotto Wall at Sparky Park.

We've got a good bit of this stuff scattered around our property and, someday, I'm going to build something out of it, you mark my word. Probably not anything on the scale of those two walls above but hopefully, at the very least, that little mini grotto I've been talking about forever and a day. I will most likely need some assistance though, and I'm certain I can't afford the likes of Berthold Haas, so if you know anyone who's good with stone, feel free to drop me a note!