Want to know how dry it is in Texas? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway, or rather show you. It’s so dry here the ground is forming these big butt cracks all around our place. 
I’m starting to get scared our house will be sucked into one of these big cracks. I’m going to retrieve two of my grandchildren from their Pappy and Lola, who’s a piece of work and another story tomorrow and I’m afraid one of them might be swallowed whole by one of these monster splits in the earth.
I amuse myself sometimes by taking a stick, or in this case, an electric fence post, and checking just how far it will go down into the crack and trying to find the deepest one of the day. Yes, I’m easily amused and I’ll admit it but hey, we all have our shortcomings. This is a 3.5 foot electric fence post and I set it in this particular crack and it went in about 2 feet. Now that’s a Texas size crack, people! 
On this day, I watered our parched withering plants, took random pictures, and poked sticks in the cracks to see how deep they were and marveled at how badly we need rain here in the South. I had my spf45 sunblock on all the exposed parts of my body and wore my favorite hat with the stampede strap to keep it from blowing off in the Texas breeze. I love that hat and try to wear it when the wind isn’t sweeping down the plain. Sorry, I got carried away singing my version of OOOOOO…klaaa….homaaaa even though I’m in Texas this week. I guess I should learn a song about Texas, other than All my Ex’s live in Texas, which is the only one that comes to mind at the moment. Along with my hat and camera, I was also wearing HBL’s beater tank undershirt, my pajama bottoms, and HBL’s CROCS™ which I’m certain was quite a sight to our neighbor to the north who was outside messing with her horses. I’m wondering now if she was just trying to get a closer look to see if I was for real, I don’t know and can’t worry about that now.
Anyway, I was taking random pictures and watering at the same time and guessed I must have taken at least one or two prize winning photos until I came inside to download…….a bunch of black pictures. What tha…?? I grabbed Oscar to see what the problem might be and saw immediately the culprit. Someone had turned a dial on poor Oscar and I suppose he was so confused, he just refused to record anything. My hopes and dreams of a Pulitzer Prize winning photo went down the tubes. The first pictures of the day were visible so someone must have grabbed my camera when I wasn’t looking and turned that dial so when I find out who it was there will be hell to pay. Do I sound mean? hehehe….I hope so.
But for now, I leave you with the second set of photos featuring monster plant/kid eating cracks forming in our parched black Texas dirt, and if you don’t hear from me until we get rain, you’ll know where I am. I sure hope it rains soon.
HAPPY TRAILS, Y’ALL
July 3, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Careful you don’t fall in! Are there critters in those crevices?
October 9, 2008 at 12:05 am
[...] to have it over with. By the way, it was a combination of the extreme drought in Texas and our black soil that cracked so badly that created this problem. After about three days the plaster cured (even filled with [...]