Earlier this spring south Texas was the happy recipient of record rainfall, ending several years of pretty severe drought almost overnight.  Reservoirs went from completely empty to spilling over the flood-gates in a matter of a few days.  During that time, we had the pleasure of dealing with up to two feet of running water flowing down our road, up to three inches of standing water in the yard, a flooded septic system, and a whole host of other flood and rain-related things.  We mostly celebrated, though, because it had been so long since we’d had good rain.

Almost as quickly as the drought ended, it started again.  It rained like crazy all spring, and the moment summer pulled the calendar from one page to the next the rains stopped.   For the last three months we’ve had at most half an inch of rain in total.  Typically, summer brings an average of 3-6 inches per month.  It’s been amazingly dry, to the extent that the weather guessers have taken to calling what we are in now a “flash drought.”

One consequence of the rapid drying of the ground around here is that the dirt shrinks; and when it shrinks, it cracks.  When I was much younger, I came down here for training, and was struck that this place could have ground so dry it had cracks three feet deep while being humid enough to be foggy at 75 degrees.  After living here for a while, I realize those three-foot cracks were small.  Some of the ones here on our homestead are probably twice that deep.

Just like the drought quickly ended and re-started, it ended again.  We were hit with the remnants of an unusual eastern-pacific hurricane that hit Mexico before dumping huge amounts of rain across most of Texas.  We didn’t get the eight to ten inches predicted, but we did get just under four yesterday, and almost all of that within about a two hour period.  The ground was definitely thirsty, because it drank up the water as fast as it could come down out of the clouds.  The picture at the top of this article is of one of those deep cracks that had opened up in the ground during the dry spell drinking up a stream of water flowing faster than I could make a garden hose flow.  By the time I took this picture, over two inches of rain had fallen, so it’s not like this flow had just started.  That crack must have swallowed hundreds of gallons.