If you've been paying any attention this summer (and not just retreating indoors and waiting it out), you'll know that the weather has been weird all over the country this summer. Drought, floods, records being topped all over the place one way and another. I'm old enough not to panic, to realize that this is just One Of Those Years that come along every once in a while (those broken records had to be set sometime in the past, after all!), and we'll get through it.
I am seeing something that I haven't seen before, however. Our ranch is on Houston Black, a black gumbo clay soil, so, of course, whenever we have a drought, as the soil dries and shrinks, cracks appear in the ground. Sometimes they get pretty big. But I've not seen, in years past, so many cracks so large and in such numbers.
It's reached the point that I have to be very careful when walking around in our own yard, especially at night, lest I step in a hole and break an ankle. My husband has a 6'+ walking stick that he has put in some of these cracks, and in some it goes down so far that only half the stick is out.
Why do we not water? For the very reason that the cracks exist. We're in the middle of a drought, don't know when it will end, water restrictions are in place, and responsible citizens are letting their lawns die rather than waste water that might be needed for drinking, or for fighting fires like the great Bastrop County wildfire here recently (34,000 acres and 1500+ homes destroyed) or the Steiner Ranch fire or any of the others.
So we watch the grass turn brown and crisp and powder underfoot. Those HOA's that insist that their members waste water to keep lawns green start being eyed with disdain. We celebrate when the temperatures drop to highs in the low 90's. And we pray for rain, we chant for rain, we dance for rain, we think about washing our cars for rain but don't do it because that wastes water - we do whatever might appease La Nina and the rain gods enough for blessed water to fall from the sky onto the parched earth.
The good thing is, if you're buying real estate (farm or city) right now, as far as the greenery is concerned, you know you're seeing it at its worst.
I hear in other parts of the country, they're getting way too much rain. I can almost remember what that feels like.
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