Wednesday 12 August 2020

Dust bowl conditions

 I have always been interested in American social history and the photos of the mid west pirarie. Last week the field behind our house has been harvested for a pea crop. Ok they did start at 1am one night with loads of big machines and lights but mostly it was a slow sedate process as they had to wait for processing to catch up with the harvest of each strip (30 feet wide by about a mile long).  Two days later the harrowing started.

It's not rained much since March. It's been plus 26c for a week. We have fine silt soil. Up and down he went dragging the harrow in a brown mist.  Two full days later everything in and out of the house has a fine brown layer. The table has to wiped down before use, no dishes can be left out, my book needed to be wiped before I could turn the page. I could not photo it to do it justice. I am hoping if it rains that it rains very hard to wash it away as any drop of water outside just leaves a muddy stain.

Even my blackberries growing at that end of the field are now brown berries!

My sympathy is with dust bowl women!

 tractors have gone today. But wait?  That's a nice strong agricultural smell instead. 

3 comments:

  1. I know exactly what you mean. I leave the mowing of my lawn for over 2 weeks because the dust it chucks up is intolerable. I only water my plants not the lawn so it looks awful. Like you no rain for many weeks and then not enough to write home about.i got up at 5 this morning expecting (Thurs) to see everything wet from the forecast storms.....not a drop. Back up in the 30s again now.

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  2. I can sometimes see the dust blowing down the valley. We got rain last night, not much, but at least it settled the dust.

    God bless.

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  3. My mother often spoke of the first rain after a long time of dryness. Having been orphaned, her older brother took care of her and her 3 sisters. She recalled him just standing out in the rain with tears and rain mingling as they poured down his face. It was a HARD time!

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