One of my oak trees in the front yard STILL has four leaves on it…
And this is after 24 hours of up to 50+kts of wind! I’m impressed! Those suckers just WILL NOT fall!
And we ‘think’ this is New Mexico blowing by…
West Texas came through an hour or so ago, and we thought we smelled oil, e.g. the Permian Basin. Thankfully, it’s stopped raining (for now). The bar ditches are full, and the water was lapping the outside lanes of the highway this morning. And to make things even MORE interesting, one, and only one side, of the crossing bars were down. Made for an interesting ‘dance’ getting over the railroad tracks, with people actually taking turns! Gotta love country drivers, they know courteous!
I thought about the O. Henry story called, “The Last Leaf,” when I saw the photo, but I’m pretty sure you would have noticed someone on a dressed in a smock, holding an artist’s palette, and standing on a ladder in your tree.
YouTube has a number of videos that show what can happen when things go wrong at railroad crossings. I suspect my fellow city folk would have not been so courteous.
I asked a buddy who has a small farm out near Lubbock if he worries about the wind blowing away his topsoil. He said, “Nah, there’s more coming from New Mexico to take its place, and if not the state gathers it all up when they clear the roads and brings it back to us by the truckload.”
The courteous nature of folks in this part of the world is one of the many reasons my wife and I came back to small town Texas from San Antonio about 20 years ago when we decided to start a family.
I hate to nit-pick a real writer, but shouldn’t that “e.g.” be “i.e.”?
It’s been blowing here as well lately, as well as raining. I’m past ready for it to calm down and dry out.
The good news is that the weather will improve. But this winter has been a real grizzly.
But will NFO bear it?
Beans. Don’t have business dealings with bears. U R sine’n too many papers. 🙂
A few uncomfortable days to insure the wells don’t run dry come summer is worth it, IMO.
We had dozens of pin oaks in our yard back in Missouri. A full 20% of their leaves wouldn’t fall for any reason until the next buds appeared in Spring. Up here, the northern birch trees hold only a few, but they’re every bit as tenacious. But since our winter has been so mild this year, there’ve been only a few windstorms to push the leaves, anyway.
John- Yeah, those videos are the definition of stoopid!
Tole- Point!
Sendarius- Probably…LOL
Jim- Yep!
LL- That it has, so much for globull warming!
WSF- Excellent point!
Rev- Oaks are tenacious everywhere apparently! We could send you some wind… 😀
“bar ditches”? A local term?
My first thought was that a bar ditch is what a drunk falls into. I have no experience with such…
Bar ditches are dug alongside a road to provide drainage. Some places they’re called a borrow ditch because the dirt is “borrowed” from the ditch and used to crown the road. I’m guessing southern dialect just converted borrow into bar.
and yes, I stole that straight from wikipedia. 🙂
Ah. Thank you. Like why so many farmers have fish ponds near the interstate- dirt borrowed to raise the interstate gives the farmer a free pond.
Robert- Those are called Benjos… LOL
And now I’m smelling cow manure, NO idea where THAT is coming from!
OldNFO – Cow manure? How about the feedlots just outside of Dalhart on US54. West Texas is still coming through. Glad I’m not driving that section of 54 today. ;>)
Robert – I know them as bar ditches also and I’m from Kansas so it just maybe a rural/farmer thing.
The manure comes with the benjo; I see Old NFO has been to Japan. The ditch I had in mind was in the PI. Never did develop a taste for San Magoo “beer”.
Two things…
Down heya in the South, we have Live Oaks (the trees used to make the USS Constitution. Very long lived, very strong, until they aren’t. And people build their houses under them. So during peak wind storms, we get to see houses and trailers and cars, boats etc, cut in half or thirds by huge cleaver/bludgeonish limbs that are 2-3 feet in diameter and weigh a metric butt-load. So, of course, we have hurricanes…
As to winds in Texas, Burnet TX is the only place I’ve ever seen dried cow flops flying through the air, on a breezy 60+mph day. Wind caught the rolled up dried corners, shook the puck loose, and, whee, flying flapjacks. Watching people dodge them was quite interesting.
Judy- Possible…
Beans- LOL, yes that WOULD be interesting! 😀
Robert- Been to PI too… crossed S**t River many a time in Olongapo. 🙂
We have bar ditches back east, also. When combined with the rail gratings at fence gates, it creates a bar to livestock wanting to wander. They will, but wallowing through a ditch is harder than just ambling off on level ground.
Just thankful that no one saw an old biddy on her one-speed bicycle, up in the cyclone. At that point, don’t worry about cow frisbees, worry about airborne wacky weed.
PK- That too! Plenty of ditch weed, but nobody cares. It’s not potent enough… LOL