Visitors and Weather

We saw one of these guys at our bird bath the other day. He was looking a little haggard and thin, not so fine and robust as the one in this picture. A painted bunting showed up in '09, 11 and now in 13. What's interesting is that all three times they appeared in July.

Their range is southern and eastern Texas, so seeing one in the the Hill Country is a little uncommon.

I imagine the drought is making some animals travel outside their comfort zones as they search for food and water.

Ah yes, the drought. This is the third year. We had a long, pleasant spring, nor has this summer been as hot as it was two years ago, for which we are grateful. But still there has been no significant rain. We need 23 to 25 inches, now, today, to bring our creeks and rivers up to normal levels.

Look at it this way. Texas has 254 counties, the most of any state in the union. 200 of those counties are experiencing severe drought conditions. The average rainfall for our area is between 30 and 31 inches. In 2011, the driest year on record, we had only 13.1 inches of rain. Last year we got all the way up to 25.04. So far this year we're up to 14.5 with the hottest part of summer looming ahead of us.

Sigh... Send us your extra drops. Pray for rain, help us with a rain dance.

I leave you with this, the sounds of a Texas downpour. Music I would love to hear.


How's the weather been in your part of the world?

Still Dry Despite the Rain

We had a little rain over the week-end. About an inch spread out over the last three days. We still need more than a foot to play catch up from last year's severe drought. And, predictions are that it will be hot and dry again this year. Though it looks like we're going to have some wild flowers this spring, the river that runs through it is still low. This was taken in the fall and it's still the same. You can see, at the bottom of the bridge supports, the normal "high" water mark, though in flood this bridge has been under water.

And that's what people are talking about, that we need a small flood, not only to fill the river, wells and aquifer, but to flush the river of built up debris.

As in this picture of a huge cypress log being carried along.

This is an island in the middle of the river called Tranquility Island. Tranquil isn't it, with the huge bald cypress trees to walk under, and the river placidly drifting by? 

This is just below Tranquility Island, which is under water. See that bridge behind the trees? I've see the water more than half-way up the supports. I've seen refrigerators and small cars in the trees. (No joke!)

Here's a picture of a vehicle that's buried on Tranquility Island.

One time during a flood my husband and I went up to the "big" dam about a mile up stream from where the above pictures were taken. We saw the most extraordinary thing. We saw grackles (You know grackles? They are a large, noisy, gregarious bird) hitching rides on pieces of debris, logs and such, and floating down river. Then, just as the log was about to go thundering over the dam, the birds flew off, veered back up stream and hitched a ride on another log.  They did it over and over. Many of them, not just a few. They were playing. It was like they were at a Disneyland for grackles.

We had only 13 inches of rain last year, when our average is around 34. Since January there's been about 5 inches, for which we are grateful. But we need a flood. Around here they're called frog chokers. At least here, in the Hill Country, most people are safe when the river rises, there's time to get out of the way and few homes are built in flood plains. But it can still be dangerous. People have lost their lives.

Have you ever been in a flood?

Bastrop Fire Update

Just to let you know. As of a few hours ago the fire was still only 30 percent contained. Nearly 35,000 acres have burned.


But here's the kicker folks, they've got a new estimate on the number of homes that have been destroyed.

Ready?

1386. That's right one thousand three hundred and eighty six homes.

The total number of home in the state that have been destroyed since the start of this horrible season of fire is: 1626.

You can read more about the Bastrop fire as well as other fires here.

Please go here, if you have a few pennies to donate.

Thank you.

Call for Help

I don't know how many of you are aware of the huge and horrible fire raging about 25 miles from Austin, Texas near a small town called Bastrop. As of this morning, over 33,000 acres and between 550 and 600 homes have been destroyed and two people have died. The valiant firefighters have only 30% of it contained.

Image taken from the website of  EarthSky: A Clear Voice for Science

It is so big the smoke can seen from space. Currently some 1200 firefighters are battling blazes all across the state with extra help coming from as far away as California and Oregon.

It has destroyed more homes than any other Texas fire since they began keeping records. The number of people displaced and who have lost everything is mind-boggling.

You can see videos and pictures of the devastation here and here.

I realize there are disasters happening all across the United States and the world, still, I am sending out a call for help.

Give what you can.

You can donate to The Salvation Army here and to The Red Cross here.

Thank you.

Signs of the Drought

The drought of 2011 may well go down as the worst, if not the second worst, in the weather history of Texas. A record 3.5 million acres have been consumed in wildfires.That's about the size of Connecticut plus the U. S. Virgin Islands. On this Labor Day it isn't easy laboring under these conditions.

I've taken some pictures of how things are looking in our area. Not good.

Remember Dave and Dave Too the turtles we rescued? Here's the creek where we put them as it looked last fall.


















This is what it looked like when we put them in the creek, just two months ago.














This is what it looks like today. Looking south.






















Looking north.

The hardy yucca are turning yellow...

...and dying.

The stoic prickly pears are shriveling up.

There are stands of bamboo around the public library, they are all turning yellow and probably in their death throws.

Warning! the following picture may be disturbing to some.










A fawn left where it was born. Not much bigger than my shoe, a whopping size nine.

It's all a bit disturbing, this heat and the dry. Everyone is tired of it, on edge, wondering about the future. Private wells are going dry. The city is on stage 4 water restrictions which means the only watering that can be done is with a hand held hose and only once a week. And yet our "city fathers" are wanting money to build a new exit off the interstate so they can open up a tract of land for a proposed 60 new homes. And another developer wants to build somewhere between 130 to 150 homes not so far from where we live.

Either we don't have enough water for the people who are already here and our government officials are stupid idiots for wanting to add more, or, we do have enough water and they are lying to us. I strongly suspect the first.

For those in the northeast and south, I truly sympathize. All that flooding, all that damage. It's the same here, only in reverse.

Have you ever been through a serious drought?

Dave

Behind our home is about 70 acres of undeveloped land where the owners graciously allow us to walk our dog and wander. We've been walking this piece of land now for 25 years. There are creeks and washes that run through it which are bone dry because of the drought.

On June 13th I posted about animals that live in and/or have visited our yard because it's so dry.

On Friday, July 1st, we were surprised when a turtle showed up. Stan found it near our gate and named him Dave. Maybe he smelled our yard. Or maybe he smelled the creek with water in it about a quarter of a mile down the road. I've read they can smell water several miles away, so maybe Dave was headed there. Of course we gave him a lift. We put him in a five gallon bucket with a little water and took him to the creek.

We've never had a turtle show up before. It's a bit of a journey to get to our house from the dry creek and through the woods. So, imagine our surprise and delight when two days later, on Sunday the 3rd, Dave Too appeared. You can see the boundary between our sad lawn (which gets a little water once or twice a week) and the grass beyond our gate.

Here's Dave Too, waiting patiently for us to take him to the creek.

Dave Too filled the bottom of the five gallon bucket, nearly ten inches long, a bit bigger than Dave. We think they are both sliders, but we're not sure. Stan believed Dave and Dave Too were soul mates journeying together who got separated.

We were happy to drive Dave Too to the creek and toss him in. His legs wiggled in excitement when Stan pulled him out of the bucket. (You can see how far down the water is from the top of the bank. Send rain y'all.)

Two turtles showing up right out side our yard in three days is magical. But it's also a sign of how hard the times are right now.

Laundry Nights

In last week's post I wrote about the drought of 1960-61 where we learned to take a bath in a quart of water.

It soon became clear that we weren't going to get any rain in the immediate future, and that our 600 gallon cistern couldn't handle doing all the laundry for a family of four. That's when Steve and Nora Ellington stepped in and offered the use of their water, which was VERY generous.

They lived in a house they'd built on the hill above the Pond in Cruz Bay. It over-looked Frank Bay and St. Thomas.

"It's just the two of us," they said. "We have plenty of water. Why don't you come do your laundry at our house. We'll make an evening of it."

And we did.

On Wednesdays, after Dad got home from working at the garage (which you can read about here) and had gotten his greasy self cleaned up, we'd pile into the The Yellow Dragon (our jeep) with a week's worth of laundry. The road into Gifft Hill was still unpaved and required four wheel drive/low transfer to get over certain places which were a-kin to rock-climbing or crawling along a river-bed.

But we were used to it.

As we came through the door, the aroma of Nora's scrumptious spaghetti sauce titillated our noses . We were also met by three dogs: Freamus, the old man, Lollie, the rambunctious teen-ager and B.F. (Black Face) Barfington Van Woof, the pug.

Mom and Nora immediately got the laundry started. Erva and I set the table. Dad and Steve had a drink and discussed whatever it is men talk about when their women folk are busy with family work.

As soon as that first load was in we'd sit down to eat. Every Wednesday it was spaghetti with garlic bread and a salad. The three dogs would nose around the table and maybe if no one was looking they might get a nibble of bread. Barfington, with his smashed in black face snuffled and snorted the loudest and sometimes stood up on his hind legs and put his front paws on the chair. Lollie (named after the island Little Hans Lollik) had brown and white fur and long silky ears that got burrs in them. He'd moved from person to person like any hyper teen. Freamus, on the other hand, knew who the push-overs were and would patiently wait looking at you with those sad dog eyes. He had the Zen of begging down.

Freamus, or Frimfram as he was also called, was a sort of wire-haired dog, with longish white-blonde fur. He was plenty friendly enough except for one thing. We were not to touch the last few hairs on the tip of his tail. We could pat and pull his ears and rub his belly and play with his feet, but if we touched those last few hairs, well, we could expect to be roundly reprimanded with snarls and snaps. It was so weird. We could grab him by his tail, we could scratch it. Just not the tip. Of course we tried to sneak up him and see how lightly we could touch those hairs. But he couldn't be fooled. He must have had ten million nerve endings attached to those hairs because it didn't take anything for him to show his gums and cuss at us like we'd tromped on his tail.

When dinner was over, Mom and Nora did the dishes and continue with the laundry while Steve and Dad had another drink and talked man stuff. But for Erva and me the very best part of our evening had begun.

We would stretch out on the floor with the dogs and watch TV, a real treat for us as we had no TV. And Wednesday nights were the best because it was The Flintstones (the first prime-time cartoon series) followed by Gunsmoke. Stone Age man and a western. Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty. Matt, Miss Kitty, Doc and Chester.

By the time Gunsmoke was over, the laundry was washed, dried and folded and it was time to make the three mile drive back to Gifft Hill, which took a good 30 minutes or more. After all, it was a school night and by the time we got home it was long past our bed-time.

I don't know exactly how long we did our laundry at Steve and Nora's house, but I'd say it was probably four or five months. That's a lot of spaghetti and good times in front of the TV, not to mention trying to sneak up on the last three hairs of Frimfram's tail.

This is a picture of Mom (on the left) and Nora, midnight New Year's Day, 1960. That's Erva in the background. I slept through it.

And this is me and Nora about five years ago on a visit to St. Croix where she was living.

Here's to Wednesday nights. Dinner, laundry and a "movie."

P.S. Tomorrow, the 28th is my birthday.

A Quart of Water

Sometime between 1960 and 1961 there was a six month drought in the Virgin Islands. Compared to what we are going through now here in Texas, six months doesn't seem like a long time. But for all of us who had to survive on rain water collected in cisterns or (as was more often the case) 55 gallon drums, it was a real hardship.

We were living at Gifft Hill at the time and were lucky to actually have a concrete cistern, even though it was only 600 gallons. (There's more about our cistern here. It has quite a history.)

During the drought we learned how to conserve water. For a while Mom was able to do laundry on the usual Saturday. Before Dad went off to work he'd started up the generator so Mom could use the ringer washer. It also meant my sister Erva and I could listen to Story Hour on the radio.

Next to the washer was a big galvanized tub for rinsing the clothes. Mom washed the whites first, like sheets and underwear. They got put through the wringer and fed into the tub to get rinsed by being sloshed around by hand. Then they got put through the wringer again and were hung out on the line. The next batch of clothes were lights and got washed and rinsed in the same water as the whites. Sometimes she could get three loads done in the white water before she drained it out onto plants and put the rinse water in the washer. But I think most of the time it was two load before she switched out the water. Anyway that last clothes to get washed were Dad's greasy mechanic work clothes.

Realize all that water was siphoned out of the cistern and into buckets that were then poured into the washer and tub. You can see the hose in this picture filling a large enamel pot. (Erva still has it!) See that plant in the center front? It's a baby papaya. Over to the right on the ground is the rinse tub. This was not only our laundry area, it was where we took our "baths."

See that quart jar by the red basin? That's how much water we used to take a bath. We'd pour a little water into the basin and wet down a wash cloth and get it all soapy. We'd use that little bit of soapy water to wet down and then scrub ourselves clean. The rest of the water in the quart was used to rinse off using another wash cloth.

Yes. A person can get clean in a quart of water.

There came a point though, when we could no longer do the laundry. But that's a story for next week, when you'll met Nora and Steve and their three dogs.

Drought

While other parts of the country are getting too much rain, we haven't had enough. This is the worst drought I've experienced in the 30 years I've lived in this area of Texas. By May it was already looking like it does in September, grass all brown and brittle, trees looking stressed....Wild fires are the big worry.

Our river that runs through it, is low. The 24-year average flow rate for this time of year is 89 cubic feet per second. The previous low was 37 CFS. As of the 6th it was flowing a mere 12 CFS. The average 30-year rainfall for the first six months is around 12.7 inches. We've had four.

We are drying up and blowing away.

That said, our back yard has become kind of haven for an abundance of critters. Here's Toad, returning to Toad Hall after a night out.

These guys, and other waspy types, are paying regular visits to the bird bath.

Texas red wasp and Yellow jacket

A lovely snake called a Mexican Racer came to call. It was about four feet long. I didn't have time to get the camera before it squeezed into a hole in one of the railroad ties. You can see a picture of what they look like here.

(Spider alert!) This beauty made its way across our lawn, which you can see is more dirt than grass. Stan found another (or perhaps the same one) living under a rock in the front yard.

A whole family of Northern Jays has taken up residence, food and water being always available. (Image compliments of Ken Thomas.)

In the past the occasional Jay has dropped in for a snack and drink but parents with young, hanging around on a permanent basis, hasn't happened before. We've also had two, possibly three other birds visit that we weren't able to identify. Of course there are the regulars, titmice, chickadees, cardinals, woodpeckers, finches, sparrows, whitewing doves, Inca doves, and our favorites mockingbirds. One mockingbird has a broken foot but seems to getting around just fine.

And let me not forget squirrels and lizards of various kinds.

And hummers. More than usual are fighting and fussing over the feeders as there are so few flowers.

Bats don't usually show up until later in the summer, but they're here already as our yard has a night light which attracts insects.

We had to put up an electric fence to keep the deer out. A part of me feels sorry for them. But the population is so large there's need for a natural culling.

The other day there was hawk in the yard. They come by often enough that we call it fly-in dining. There will be a small explosion of noise and movement near the tree where the birdfeeder hangs followed immediately by total silence.

The only thing missing is bees. Haven't see any this spring. Worrisome.

If you've had too much rain, huff and puff and blow it our way, we'd be ever so thankful!