This issue of Texas Hill Country Magazine is available to read with an online subscription. See the same pages as in the print edition with all the stories, photos, and more.
Leakey, the county seat of Real County, welcomes visitors and attracts newcomers to an area of outstanding natural beauty. Its steep, rugged terrain creates deep canyons which shelter the Frio and Nueces rivers. Lazy, slow-moving stretches of water are interspersed with thrilling whitewater rapids and deep pools, providing exceptional kayaking, tubing and fishing for outdoor enthusiasts.
Driving tours are popular with both auto and motorcycle aficionados, where hairpin curves cling to the m ...
A photo of the view from the Hillside Boutique Hotel in Castroville will make your friends think you are on exotic vacation. The palm trees, tropical flowers, cabanas and a beautiful pool overlooking a panoramic valley is the perfect staycation.
Located on a hilltop on U.S. Highway 90, this hotel was once known as the Hotel Alsace but it has changed—and that’s an understatement.
The newly renovated hotel is on 13 acres owned by Joseph and Jana Winkler and Pete Markwardt.
Hillside fe ...
Located in the heart of sheep and goat country where live oaks dot the hills and clear streams flow, a vibrant South Texas artisan is creating colorful clothing and single-handily promoting an industry whose heyday peaked years ago.
Dolores Vernor greets me at the door of her shop on Camp Wood’s main street.
When Daniel and Adriana Omo moved their family from city living in San Antonio to Blanco County, they were seeking a more wholesome, rural lifestyle, where they could all slow down and have a closer connection to the land and the sense of a small community. But they probably did not foresee goat herds and cheese-making in their future.
Their oldest child, Chrissy, was a teenager and it was a big change for her.
It’s just a little old shop on a corner in the town of Goldthwaite. I walk in and I am almost overwhelmed by what I see—a huge variety of beautiful items on shelves, hanging from the walls, set up on the floor. Then the lady behind the counter tells me that everything I see is handcrafted by about 30 different people.
Ashe junipers, or the ubiquitous “cedar” trees covering the terrain, generally elicit scorn from Hill Country landowners. Most consider the bushy evergreens to be a nuisance, robbing the soil of moisture, causing miserable allergic reactions during pollination and serving no greater purpose than raw material for gnarly fence posts.
But the Klaassen family views cedars as natural works of art that can be transformed into sturdy, attractive bed frames and other pieces of rustic furniture.
On a warm, windy day in October, I arrived at the home of Jerome and RoShell Heiner in the small community of Blumenthal, Texas, located between Stonewall and Fredericksburg.
My mission: to learn about propagating and growing sweet potatoes in the Hill Country.
Jerome and RoShell, along with their sons, and later, daughters-in-law and grandkids, have been growing and selling sweet potatoes throughout the area for more than 40 years.
When their youngest son Randy was born, the now-family ...
A trip out to the lavender farm is a big part of Blanco’s annual Lavender Festival.
This year’s featured farm, Hill Country Lavender, is celebrating its fourteenth year of operation with a new location at the intersection of FM 165 and FM 2325.
The young plants on the new farm have reached their first year of maturity; the lovely lavender flowers enjoyed by many for their beauty and valued for their many uses as well, have begun blooming.
“There is a second field nearby and we act ...
Kayte and Justin Graham take a decidedly green approach when it comes to pork production at their Zanzenberg Farm in Center Point.
Instead of keeping their hogs in close quarters, they allow them to roam freely in grazing pastures to take advantage of Mother Nature’s bounty. The Grahams say the animals benefit from vitamin D supplied by the sun along with minerals from the soil and nutrition from a variety of plants that combine to create a natural “salad.” Ironically, pigweed ranks h ...
For those of us fortunate enough to actually live in the beautiful Texas Hill Country, displaying examples of its abundant (and, at times, rare) natural beauty on our properties is a given. For the rest of us outlanders though, adding a little of this special region’s colorful and hearty flora to our yards and gardens can be a trying exercise.
