Discovering and Defining the Texas Hill Country

I’ve been writing the words, “Texas Hill Country” and assuming you are familiar with this place. To be honest, coming from Houston, I wasn’t always sure what or where the Hill Country was and so, have decided this post will be dedicated to the discoveries I have made thus far in defining for me the Texas Hill Country. The anchor photo for the post is a painting by Julian Onderdonk titled, “Road in the Hills, January”taken from Julian Onderdonk: A Catalogue Raisonne (Halff, H.A , Halff, E., 2016, Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) a book I purchased at the San Antonio Museum of Art after multiple viewings of an exhibition titled America’s Impressionism: Echoes of a Revolution which featured works by Julian Onderdock and his father, Robert. Julian Onderdonk is renowned for his paintings of the Texas Hill Country, in particular paintings featuring the state flower, the bluebonnet.

This is a photo of a map of Texas from Wikipedia with the Hill Country designated in green.

In 1939, Stanley Marcus of the Texas based Neiman Marcus department store commissioned a poem from writer Townsend Miller. The poem, “A Letter From Texas” became a 20-page book, published by Carl Herzog and sold in the Neiman Marcus stores at Christmas time. The poem is actually written as a letter from Townsend Miller to his friend, John. I learned about the poem and read it in an article written by W. F. Strong, professor of Culture and Communication at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. The photo above is Professor Strong’s copy of the book! The article is one of a series of his works, titled Stories from Texas which are published in the Texas Co-op Power Magazine and in podcast form.

The poem is written in descriptive statements about wondrous places Townsend Miller has been all over the state of Texas. Near the end of the poem, he writes the lines:

            Remembering the slow dusk of the Rio Grande.

            Remembering the high hawks of the violet hills…

Reading this, I was inspired to create a photo-poem sharing not what I remember, but what I have discovered deep in the heart of the Texas Hill Country to date! I know there will be many more moments of note as the years unfold.

Discovering silence in a morning run along the River Walk in the middle of old San Antonio.

Discovering back roads and highways lined with cedar and Texas laurel trees strung with ribbons shining in the golden sunlight of Christmas time.

Discovering highways packed with leather vested motorcyclists and pristine vintage cars.

A Texas star emblazoned on an iron garden grate.

A bronze cowboy working the ranch from the back of his trusty steed.

Discovering horses who come when you whistle, watching and waiting for a stroke on the nose through a rusting wire fence.

Discovering limestone quarries where blocks of creamy white, dusty stones are cut and chiseled, to cover historic buildings, missions, libraries, banks, churches, schools, and our home.

Discovering a place in Comfort, Texas where we can share a cup of cappucino and write in our journals while the breeze sends oak leaves skittering across the ground and crowds mingle at the sidewalk sale outside the shop across the road.

Blue and white striped curtains, a shelter from the sweltering sun.

Summer light stays late for candlelight dinners on the back porch; fried fish wrapped in a tortilla is always a good idea.

Discovering trees struggling to live on, roots embedded in stone…intriguing characters.

Discovering dasylirion Texanum dotting the slopes and clinging to the edge of the local arroyos.

Discovering a panoramic view of the Hill Country from an outcropping at Enchanted Rock, just north of Fredericksburg, a mystical mountain of pure, pink granite once hidden by Cretaceous limestone.

Prickly pear cactus are everywhere.

Longhorns immortalized in plaster, plastic, and stone; living longhorns shuffle languidly in fields bordering twisting blacktop roads.

Discovering hay blankets rolled in bales and ready for delivery.

Discovering eagles perched on sword hilts and bronze bases; whistling a call to eagles swooping across the land and into a salmon colored sunset.

Discovering the stair treads at the Briscoe Western Art Museum are sheathed in leather.

And saddles are embellished in bronze embroidery and silver snake button studs. (Pancho Villa’s last known parade saddle on loan to the Briscoe Western Art Museum from the Ernie and Louise Davis Collection)

Houses in the hills have been added to over the years with boards, bricks, stones and tin.

While some in the cities are mottled with time and preserved with care.

Discovering bluebonnets come in full force with most, but not all spring seasons. (Julian Onderdonk’s painting, “Bluebonnets on a Showery Day in the Hills Northwest of San Antonio,” 1921)

Watching a greater roadrunner skim across the land, pause, listen, and leap into the Texas sage, snatching up his supper. (Photo credit www.birdsandblooms.com)

Listening to the beating of wild turkey wings as a covey of twelve bursts from the hill across the road and flys overhead while I’m cutting the stalks off spent perennials for spring. (Photo credit www.tripsavvy.com)

Early morning, waking to the distant but discernable glow of Jupiter through our bedroom window. (Photo credit www.nasa.gov)

Discovering an overwhelming love for the land and all the surprises it holds.

Discovering something new about the heart of the Texas Hill Country each dawning day.