I am trying out this new blog which I ran across this morning. Since I love to write and I think a lot this way I can write about all kinds of things that are on my mind. Some people may not think it interesting, but I don't care. Just getting things off my mind sometimes, writing it down, will help me. I don't intend to offend anyone, but if I do, I am sorry, just don't write and tell me! I don't take criticism well! And that's a fact!
What I am writing about this morning is the drought in Texas. I just read about the drought all over the USA, mostly west of the Mississippi River. Including Texas, where I live...South Texas!
When I drive down the highway and the streets of this small Texas town - it is dry, dreary, brown and scary! Why? Because I grew up here during the 30's and 40's - graduated and moved away, but saw my parents lose their 100 acre farm in the 50's due to the drought. I saw what it was like those years in the early 50's. I looks like that now. It is not a pretty sight.
Being raised on a farm but living in big cities for nearly 60 years, I was away from what it feels like to live in the country. I was glad to leave the farm, and hoped to never come back. Now I am back living in this county and in Floresville, and experiencing the feeling of a drought. It is on everyone's mind - everywhere you go. It is what people talk about. The farmers are hurting.
I also study history, especially Texas history. I have read about the struggles back at the turn of the 20th century, of living in Wilson County where there was no rain, no lakes, no water, not many wells. People took their wagons and mules 5 to 10 miles just to get water to water their livestock and to drink for themselves and cook, and bathe.
Even in the 1930's and '40's my daddy did the same for us, because the windmill pumped up the worst tasting water, hard as rock as my Daddy would say, and we could not drink it or cook with it. Or even wash clothes with it. When it was a drought and we had no water in our cistern by the front porch from the water pouring off the roof when it rained, Daddy took the old pick up truck with two water barrels to an artesian well on someone's ranch miles away to get us drinking water. We hoarded that water like it was gold.
I also remember the dust storms sometimes during the depression years and the sand seeping into our house through the cracks and it was hard to breathe, and we put handkerchiefs over our faces to keep the sand out of our nostrils and mouths and even eyes. Yes I do remember.
So, living in a drought area is a scary thing.
At least now I have an airtight house, and air conditioning and running water out of a faucet and a water filter to make this awful tasting water in the city taste better! I am grateful for many things.
But S. Texas is desperate for rain. It has not rained in 7 months. We watch the skies for storm clouds just like my daddy did back then. He would stand on the edge of the field and watch and talk and mutter to himself and cuss especially when the clouds would begin to rain and then stop and go the other way just as they got to the edge of his farm.
He would come in after dark and go to bed in a really bad mood. We stayed clear of him and tried not irritate him. I remember thinking how some day I would live where it rained and I would never live in such a dry country. Never say never!
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