Wet Stuff on the Lawn

If you don't live in Texas, you may not be aware that Texas is experiencing the worst drout in over fifty years. Record high tempetures and way below average rain fall has left over 80 counties in Extream Drout conditions.

At the end of July of this year, the drout had already claimed over 3.5 billion in crop and livestock.

We are smack dab in the middle of the dry area. It has been over a year since I have been able to water my yard, wash my car, or let my son play in the sprinker. In the city limits of Austin and some of the wealtheir subdivisions out side the city, you are still allowed to water. They are restricted to once every five days and only before 10 am or after 7 pm.

The Austin American Statesman publishes the worst residential water offenders each month from a list supplied by the city. While in my subdivision we are allowed to use only 30,000 gallons a month -- and are fined if we go over that, some of these offenders use 200,000-300,000 gallons in a single month - with no fines or increases in the cost of water.

The past twelve years in Austin, we have experienced 6-8 weeks of swamp like weather during the spring. Where it is raining, about to rain, just rained, flooded, or drying out from the last rain constantly. This year we didn't have that. We've had so little rain and it's usually at night. By the next morning the ground isn't even wet any more.

Then, the last three days this odd liquid stuff has been falling from the sky. You can't see the stars due to the cloud coverage. Mud is every where, all the leaves are being washed to the ground, and the tempeture has dropped 5-10 degrees.

Whatever that wet stuff on the lawn is, I'd like to see a little more of it.