Texas Drought Photos

A few days ago, Brandon and I were on a photo assignment from my mom and dad to get some pictures of the ranch's pastures to show some of our northern friends about the drought. She posted several on the V8 Ranch facebook page of the pastures and stuff but while we were doing the ranch photos, we decided to take some pics of Mollie vs. the drought.

When I came up with the idea to take Mollie's picture in the drought conditions, my husband said his typical response of "you are crazy". In fact, he and my granddad have this acronym they use on the ranch for problems that occur due to "W.A.C.".....standing for Women Are Crazy. Ha, that's another blog topic. And, as you can see from her picture, I guess Mollie agreed with her dad. I'm pretty sure she is thinking, "Mom, REALLY? Why are you making me do this?"

But, I insisted on taking these photos. Because years from now, when we tell Mollie that she was born in the worst drought of modern Texas times, we can show her these photos and help her put it into perspective. When I think of drought, I think of these poor helpless pioneers in their dresses and bonnets during the dustbowl.

Then, I am reminded of the fact that our drought is worse than the drought Texans faced in the 1930s. So Mollie is living in the modern day dustbowl. So we thought it would be a good illustration to photograph Mollie standing next to the big cracks in our pasture. To put it in perspective, Mollie is nearly 5 months old and weighs 15 pounds. As you can see, the cracks are bigger than her.

I know it is somewhat hard to see, but here she is standing next to the cracks that we had just put her whole body into in the pictures above.

 And here is one where you can see, her legs and feet fit easily into the cracks.

This picture shows one of our fencelines on the ranch, where the cracks in the pasture are causing the fence posts to lean over and be crooked.

These are at a different spot on the ranch, but you can see these cracks are wider than my hand.

Here is a section of what we call our "springer pasture." I was getting scared to drive across this actually.

More pictures of some smaller cracks on the ranch.

We are located about an hour south of Houston, and I know there are lots of folks out there worse off than us, especially further west. Many of our customers and friends at experiencing weather-related issues due to drought or flooding this summer. While I think we are in a rough situation at V8, every day we continue to be THANKFUL for all the many things we DO have. We are so much more blessed than most, and we try to keep this in mind. We have all of our customers and friends in our thoughts, and continue to be optimistic for the future!