and the heat goes on....

another week of dry heat.  another week of watching anemic systems carrying scant rain slide by, passing through from every imaginable direction.  one system, loosely associated with tropical storm don, passed by to the south but moving from east to west.  i found that odd. it has to be extremely rare.  most systems come through from SW to NE or NW to SE.  a few, like the storm that dropped softball sized hail on the city a few years back, traveled from NE to SW. 

watching the radar this afternoon i see a few showers trying to form; the problem is they are building to the north of the city and moving away to the north.  another near miss in the making.

no drought lasts forever.  the dry spell starting in 1953 lasted only three years, until 1956.  i'm hoping this one is not of a like mind.

despite my skeptic heart, it will rain again and (borrowing a line from JMB's article in today's AGN) when it does "i'll raise my walker in celebration. 

i'm praying for rain.  if you pray too, maybe the rains gods will stand and deliver. aio  

even the cacti are wilting...

skimming the agn sunday edition, i came across yet another a piece commenting on the extreme heat and dirth of moisture across the great state of texas.  while  it will certainly become the worst drought on record if things don't change, the drought is not singling texas out in particular as a big part of our great nation is suffering the wrath of extreme heat and dryness.

the article noted that "on average, there has been less than six inches of moisture across the state through june."  the good folks of the panhandle wish it were otherwise but the region is a major contributor toward that low number.  rainfall/moisture of any kind has yet to come even close to the 2 inch mark for most folks around little a town.  Welp, you have to discard silverton as an anomaly in that average as a recent storm dropped 10+ inches there in one day. go figure!

i was around during the years 1953-56 when the record for least rainfall was set.  however, not having reached my 10th birthday those days aren't exactly etched into my memory banks.  but i'll bet you a dollar against a hole in a doughnut this year will be with me for the remainder of my days. 

ya'll pray for rain!  aio   

phoenix sandstorms...

all the fuss in the news of late re: the dustups/sandstorms in the phoenix area have me thinking, really?  is that the best you can do?  and who knew sandstorms have a name--  haboob?  haboob is apparently what they call a sandstorm over there in the arabic part of the world.  why, we need to call a good old american sandstorm by that moniker, beats me.

"haboob" ransom canyon, texas

                                                              
the good folks of arizona should check out spring time in lubbock, lynn, dawson and the surrounding counties on the south plains of texas. the folks around there know sandstorms.  kaboobs, not so much.  aio

yesterdays...

it's been more than a host of yesterdays since i last sat on the metal seat of my dad's old john deere.  afternoons like this one take me back to that time.  mowing my lawn in the heat of the day is not the smartest thing to do but i have just enough of the farmer mentality left in me that's when i choose to do it, as often as not.

                                                                  

as in those days, today the sky was dotted with popcorn clouds. cumulus to be more precise, or the cumuli as i've taken to calling them most recently.  out and back and out again, the rows are a lot shorter doing the yard, still i found myself hoping the sun was up for a game of hide and seek.

i think my new mower could take that old deere in a quarter mile, that is if i could keep up with the craftsman for that distance without a stop.  full throttle, it runs almost too fast to walk behind it but not fast enough to make me break into a jog.

today, as in those days, the sun did it's best to wring  from me my last drop of sweat.  before i left for the field i'd fill a gallon jug with water.  my mama had carefully fitted several layers of cloth to the outside which was wetted through. the idea being evaporation, and carefully moving the jug into any available shade at the completion of each round, would keep the water "cool".   by quittin" time, the cloth was mostly dry, the jug was close to empty, the water tepid at best.   what i wouldn't have given for and "igloo", if there was even such an animal in those days. 

but you go with what you know.   necessity may be the mother of invention but my being here today gives testament to reality.  a cloth wrapped gallon jug can keep a dry land farmers kid from turning into a sun dried prune.  thanks mom, if i forgot to tell you back in the old days, many thanks. aio

the end... at last.

if you believe there's something unnatural about a middle 60's aged man being a huge fan of the harry potter phenomenon, read no further.

the problem, if you can call it that, is that harry, hermione and ron came along too late in my life.  too late, that is, to blame my fascination with harry and the gang on humoring my kids.  by the time the series came along, my kids were well on their way to adulthood.  without that excuse, my excuse is, i have none.  but with the reading of the harry p and the sorcerer's stone, i was hooked.  i've marked the years with keen anticipation of the next book. and so it was with the movies. 

the sorcerer's stone, the chamber of secrets, the prisoner of azkaban, the goblet of fire, the order of the phoenix and the goblet of fire-- all great movies.  but, the deathly hallows part 1 left an awful taste in my mouth; thus it was with anxious anticpation i've waited for the release of dh part 2. 

we saw it today, in imax real-d 3d.  in a word, WOW!  the movie was at once, funny, touching and in all, extremely satisfying.  an awesome finish to a great run.

hp's fandom adopted this cast of characters as their own, watching them grow from neophyte wizards, watching with excitement as with each new edition the young wizards become more a force to be reckoned with, and in the end formidable wizards each in their own right.  the fans have soldiered alongside harry and his band through every trial and triumph, rooting hard for good and even harder against the evil voldemort and his vile minions.

the journey that is harry potter is complete for me, but it has not reached it's end. it is not over.   the books, the movies are there waiting for generations yet unborn to buy a ticket on the hogwart express, to be swept up and away into the fantastical world of magic and wizardry, into the amazing world of harry potter. what a ride it was.  what a ride it will be, again and again!  aio  

and the heat goes on...

so the empty promise of the cumuli earlier in the week has come to the same dead end.  another week of triple digit temps continues to bake this part of a thirsty earth beyond redemption.

the city fathers have implemented a voluntary water rationing programme asking that the good citizens of little a town refrain from watering lawns more that 20 minutes, twice weekly.  the fathers are unaware of my re-sodding the front and side yards last fall leaving my front lawn less than fully mature and that, even with watering more frequently than proscribed, the lawn has been a study deepening shades of brown.

still, wanting to do my bit for the good of all, i dialed the sprinkler control back to three times a week.  or so i thought.  as the browning accelerated over these last hotter than hell days, i became increasingly alarmed.

checking the system last night i found i had somehow dialed the controller back to zero.  instead of being set to water thrice weekly, it wasn't set to water at all! days have passed without watering!   thank you city fathers.  between the two of us we've managed to put my poor lawn in critical condition.  even if i drained the ogallala, i'm afraid my lawn is so far gone the sum total of that aquifer's magic potion would fail to bring it back from the brink.  should i be watering to make up for lost time?  or should i just let it die and save all that water for the city fathers to use on their already/still lush green carpets?

damn, we need rain, and soon.  aio

accumulating cumulus...

                                                                     

it seems i've spent a good part of my life hoping for rain. many summer days in my youth were spent walking the rows of cotton with a hoe in hand, or riding that old john deere out and back and repeat. on days like today i'd have an eye to the sky.  dry land cotton farming is a make or break situation completely dependent on the rains.

if you looked outside today you'd see a good many cumulus clouds-- puffy and white with a tinge of blue at the edges.  they remind me of my cloud watching on those summer days long ago, their presence a tease-- of possibility, of hope for building into something more substantial.  puffy and white, not a chance of rain but with a tinge of blue deepening to a solid gray, came a better chance.  if, and only if it started to rain, or with the threat of thunder and lightening, did i get to knock off early, throwing that old deere into road gear, hoping to outrace the coming storm to the house.

the panhandle, even with recent rainfalls, remains it's driest since the 1950's.  and so on days like today i take up again the habit of my youth.  i watch the clouds, hoping for cumulus, praying that this round is something more than pretenders; that these will build, climbing high, becoming heavy and too weary to hold their treasure any longer, losing their grip, spilling rain onto a thirsty and grateful land below.  maybe today will be the day. i certainly hope so. if not today, perhaps tomorrow. i'll be keeping an eye to the sky, just in case.   aio