Watering Hole

Soon after building the guest house I started seeing lots of critters through those three big windows pictured.  So I thought it would be cool to have something outside to attract even more of them for our viewing pleasure. Since we have no water source for animals anywhere near the house, the answer seemed simple: build a watering hole!  Having owned this property for 14 years I knew this would be a challenge, since every time I had tried to dig down more than about two inches I would hit bedrock.  Solid Limestone.  Boulders the size of a Texas soccer-mom's SUV.  

Somehow I was lucky enough to find a seam in the rocks right where I needed it for optimal viewing pleasure.  And once exploited, that seam allowed us to pry, winch, and heave-ho the boulder you see in the background.  All without heavy excavating equipment.  

I've got lots of digging left to do, Meanwhile I'm researching options on how to make the hole retain any water fed to it through the guest house roof gutter.  It is currently too steep and ragged for a PVC liner, but a few hours of jack hammering might be able to fix that.  Or there is the reinforced concrete option if that fails.

This is obviously not a really critical, time sensitive project, so who knows when I'll finish it.  If I can get it done before the weather starts to heat up in May 2016, I'll be thrilled.

Eastern black-necked garter snake!

Right on our back porch, and just as friendly as can be.  I'm not sure why it was hanging around there, unless he was awaiting nightfall when the frogs tend to come out.  I love having these nice little snakes around as a part of our wildly diverse Wimberley ecosystem!