Wesley Howe

There is a lot of bad news floating around out there, and a lot of anguish over what to do about it. I am going to skip commenting about any of that stuff… leave it to the political blogs.

For several days here I have been humming “Happy Days Are Here Again”, even though I am not a Democrat. Has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with conditions here at Ranch Como.

For pretty much the first time since August, we are “underwater”… no, not a mortgage problem, real water. If fell from the sky. It’s been so long since that happened I had to think about what they called that: Rain!

And darned if there aren’t patches of green out in the midst of the sea of brown that I used to call pastures. While there has not been anywhere close to enough rain to start raising the levels of our stock tanks (Texas’ term for small cattle ponds), it has moistened the ground enough to start the native cool-season grasses (varieties of ryegrass) growing.

Our cattle seem well pleased at the development also. Their diet for the last 6+ months has been hay, with some cattle cubes to supplement. Hay is nutritious (for cattle), but they don’t like it as well, and it is not as nutritious as fresh, green grass. What’s there isn’t tall, but for two days they spent most of the day ignoring the hay and finding the little patches of green and eating what they could of it.

We are not finished with winter here yet, but things have improved dramatically, and it has filled me with hope for a year with at least close to normal rainfall. Another extremely dry year like last year would seriously damage the land. Last years drought killed some Oaks, and even killed some of the Cedar (reall Juniper) trees on the place… they just turned brown and died from lack of water. There are still plenty of trees left, but I think a second extreme dry would kill a lot of trees, as well as grasses dying instead of just being dormant.

So I have said my thanks for this positive turn of event to the one responsible. But I just feel so much better seeing it happening now. This is not especially early for this part of the country (we are as far South as parts of Florida here), but after having such a dry Fall, dry enough that even the weeds stopped growing, it is inspiring.