Yesterday Was A Little Like Winter

 Could have been worse I guess. It wasn't a once in a billion years unprecedented generational apocalyptic bomb cyclone unlike anything that will ever be seen again in the entire history of planet earth. No, it was not one of those. We get those several times a year but not this time. By Sunday we might hit eighty degrees F but winds will be bad. Winds will be bad every day for at least a week. This part of Texas is a shithole, elevated to about 3000 feet above sea level, mashed flat and scoured by wind. Very flat and very featureless but a shithole nevertheless. Disregard the elevation. A shithole is a shithole. And Lubbock is right in the middle of that windswept void. Not much you can grow here except cotton, and even that is becoming a difficult crop due to the lack of rain. Dryland cotton is just about impossible anymore. And irrigation is using up irreplaceable ground water, water from an aquifer that won't recharge in a thousand years. I remember when there were fields of sunflowers! I remember when farmers around here even planted corn! I remember when the average annual rainfall was eighteen inches!! Wow! 

Cold This Morning

 It might be very nice Sunday if the wind isn't strong enough to put more crap in the air. No such luck, probably. The howling wind speaks to the vacancy of this area. The emptiness and desolation, with a drought on top of that, makes for a bleak landscape. But it could always be worse. And that's not a very good thought, is it? If it COULD be worse, it probably WILL be worse. 

It's kind of cold this morning, since another little front blew through. It's still winter, obviously. Someday it might rain! Someday. 

REALLY Dusty Yesterday!

 But I'd rather have a brown-out than a white-out, and it was not cold. Limited visibility and a lot of hazardous crap blowing around. Almost had a wreck swerving to avoid what looked to be one of those plastic utility boxes blowing across the street right in front of me. It must have been sitting in an alley waiting for installation and the wind got it. Yesterday began windy and it stayed that way until well after sunset. Today it won't be so bad. 

A lot of flimsy fences got knocked over and that means escaped pets. My fence has 8 foot steel uprights with 2 feet anchored in concrete with a concrete skirt all around the perimeter. That's what it takes to deal with this kind of wind. Expensive? You bet. Cedar planks six inches wide and an inch thick fastened to cedar 2 by 4 horizontals with treated decking screws. Someday I really ought to consider ribbon wire as an adornment for this structure. 

Windy, Dusty

 But I won't complain. It isn't cold, no snow, no ice, no "historic" blizzard. What is with those idiot weather headlines? ANOTHER freaking historic blizzard?? If something happens several times a year there is nothing historic or generational about it. It's par for the damned course. I would have to say that modern journalism is a joke. Of course, it's corporate and geared to click bait headlines and advertising revenue. There is no enterprise on the planet that capitalism can't or won't destroy, degrade, debase. That includes journalism, medicine, and religion, among many other things. Greed kills. Greed is poison. 

Nice Weather Here

I can do a lot outside, the usual clearing. Some rain chances. Extended forecast is still looking very mild. 

 People seem to be getting crazier. What explains that? William Burroughs had a good idea, way back in the fifties. He described a feedback effect in, I think, "The Ticket That Exploded".