Finishing Avenue K And Starting The Dust Bowl Series

This is just a very funky spot.

And now the first of the pics I took during the first day of our recent spell of wind and dust:

 This house has been abandoned for years.

 In the planter above, I found the rocks for our garden.

Third Day Of Wind And Dirt

It goes on and on. Wind and dirt and dirt and wind. It's Spring! It's Lubbock.

From Lubbock's Avenue K

I did these before the latest round of dust storms, so they are more cheerful than the pics I will post after these. Those others were taken in the thick of an orange sky, and I was being sandblasted.

There is just one more batch of these. These were taken near a really funky beer joint. We are talking about something like Cheers, a friendly neighborhood place, but in a very different sort of neighborhood in a very different sort of city, in a very different sort of state.

Sights From South University

This is really out in the boonies, but the city is growing in that direction as well. Lubbock is sucking up limited and irreplaceable water resources at a faster and faster rate. Let us get this straight: our aquifer does not recharge quickly enough to matter, no matter how hard it rains. 

 

A Parched And Barren Land

The playa lakes around town are good drought indicators. And they are vanishing. The near-surface water table is becoming so low that soon trees will start dieing. There is no rain in prospect. In fact, it looks like we are in for a week of dust storms. Tomorrow will be very bad. Hot, dry, dusty, wind is the norm at this time of year anyway. 

All that area in the foreground was under water years ago. But these are just little playa lakes. The same thing is happening to larger lakes used for recreation and drinking water.