Friends at the wall

The deer on our property seem to like the wall. They lay down next to it, put their fawns in the shelter of it, and show us their gazelle jumps over it. This buck stopped to give me a portrait.

Large stones can play too!

By using large boulders, dry stacked, you too can get that Flintstones look. The owner of this wall brought these large boulders from the back of his property to define his driveway and the

front of his lot. This wall is not going anywhere.

Clearing the stone

Dry stack fans from other areas have asked about what kind of stone is available here in Central Texas. With shallow topsoil, and scrub cedar trees steeling most the water, the limestone is visible and plentiful. Early Texas settlers clearing their homestead land used this loose and plentiful stone to make animal pens and mark off their land.

We like to look for walls that incorporate the honeycomb limestone in amongst the thick white limestone blocks. Softer white quarried limestone is easily chunked into shapes and pieces that lend themselves to the art of fitting the stones together in a tight and sturdy structure.

Lean on me

Large stones accenting the small

These large stones reminds one of the Neolithic stones in Ireland and Britian. They act as a support stone, and breaks up the continuous small stack to make a dramatic impact. It invites you to take time to inspect the large stones, reflecting on what the builder might have considered when choosing it.

Graceful lines across acres

The beautiful serpentine lines of this low wall, welcomes one into the property even before there are any signs that there is a home over the hill. This perfectly laid low wall makes use of the hill country limestone, freshly quarried, with the warm rust tones of iron deposits.

Northern Hays County, Texas

Following the old wall

Driving out just one road in the Texas Hill Country can prove to be plentiful with the remnants of old walls and some not so old. Here an old dry stack forms the edging that the modern paved road follows down the hill to a creek. Now with increased traffic, the old wall can seek some protection from damage with the metal railing as a shield.

A Grand Entrance

With graceful lines, this beautiful wall angles slightly up to form an entrance to a ranch. It runs the full length of the ranch entrance. A straight on example of the field stone in the area that is used here. No quarried stone is nessesary. Limestone in many different forms is plentiful.

A Living Feature of the Landscape

By choosing the stones carefully and packing them tightly together with very thoughtful design, you can make a really strong structure that's completely self-supporting.

A dry-stone wall is much more natural: it's little more than a vertical stack of stones laid together slowly and carefully so the stones lock together under their own weight.

One gets the sense that dry-stone walls are a living feature of the landscape.

Buck and Doe

Here is a wonderful example of finishing off the top of the wall. Wall-builders arrange flat stones on their ends along the top, both to give a wall an attractive finished appearance and to stop the top stones falling or being knocked away. The upper stones are referred to as the capstones or topstones, "buck and doe," or "cock and hen. See how the large "bookend" stone holds the upright stones and serves as a decorative feature.

The wall on our property

Dry Stack Rock Walls of Central Texas

This is an information site for documenting dry stack rock walls in the Central Texas region. The stacking of rock that can withstand time and the elements, takes a special talent and a way of seeing the rocks. We are curious, and we hope you are too, about this old skill and why it should be appreciated.

We will seek out and photograph old walls, remnants of old walls and

feature new construction of dry stack and their builders. The old rock walls have a story to tell and have some beautiful form and shape to them. As local landscapers use more and more stone in their designs and landscaping, there seems to be a resurgence in this old skill. Sadly, as cities expand and reach out into the countryside for development, these old walls may be torn down.

The charm and beauty of dry stack should not be a thing of the past, but a skill to be passed on.

In the future we will be featuring photos, casual interviews with these rock workers, where they learned their craft, and why they are interested in keeping it alive.

Please check back often with the Dry Stack Hunter, and see what we have found.

Thanks for visiting!