Driving across the state is depressing.

12 years ago

I spent the weekend in Hot Springs, AR and it's so green and wonderful there. On the way back we went through North Texas (Hwy 82) and the drive started out so green and lush with overflowing ponds and TREES and wildflowers everywhere. And then we crossed I-35 and everything died. We still saw flowers, but they were on cacti. Empty ponds, hardly any trees, no green. We were in Texas, but I'm pretty sure Oklahoma looks the same when you cross it. I'm most sad about the wildflowers. They're so pretty, but we don't have any.

And if that wasn't bad enough, my parents have a place on Lake Hamilton and my mom went and bought some shrubs while we were there. She put them in pots on the boat dock and then stuck a submersible pump in the lake to irrigate and put it on a timer to water every. single. day. I hate her. Or I would if she didn't have a garden here too to suffer through.

But I came home to four inches of water in my rain gauge! With more to come, it looks like. That definitely helps. And my garden looks way better than it did when I left.

Leslie

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Comments (7)

thebadmonkey
12 years ago
I travel abroad every so often and its never unusual to see prettier places than what we have here in Ok. We have our share of wildflowers but got shortchanged when it comes to some of the beautiful wildflowers in other states.
seeker1122
12 years ago
I know your pain.
That's why I do a trip to Arkansas every year.
Tree
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fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX
12 years ago
0.40 inches for the yr so far here. But that's a better start than 2011. We went 22 months late summer 2010 to early summer 2012 with 1.5 inches total.

I don't even hope for rain this time of year because it's not possible to get a good rain without hail. The price we pay for sunshine all year long!!
Lisa_H OK
12 years ago
We may not have the most gorgeous wild flowers, but I LOVE the winter colors in southern Oklahoma. My friends think I'm crazy, they don't see the beauty of it, I guess, but I love the smokey colors.

I took this a few months ago down near Turner Falls...I couldn't capture what I saw, but it was just lovely.

This post was edited by lisa_h on Mon, May 26, 14 at 23:02
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
12 years ago
Leslie, At least you were able to celebrate receiving all that rain when you got home. I hope y'all get to green up for a while.

We make that drive across Hwy 82 both ways---going to Sherman to shop or going west to Muenster to buy real beef---and it is a gorgeous drive when the wildflowers are blooming. It isn't as gorgeous now as is normally is. There have been some periods of green-up with nice wildflowers this year, but they are somewhat brief because good rainfall days are few and far between. When we drive west to Muenster, we come back home by crossing the Taovayas Bridge between TX and OK, and driving back east on Hwy 32. Western Love County is in Extreme Drought and looks pretty dry and then it gets a little greener as you head east in central Love County where we are only in Severe Drought. Right now a lot depends on whether someone has hayed or mowed their property. If they haven't mowed or hayed, they still have some green but if they have mowed or hayed in the last couple of weeks, brown stubble is pretty much the rule. There has been too much heat and too little rain for the grasses to recover/regrow after being mowed or hayed.

Lisa, Your photo looks a lot like our pasture right now, except it is mowed down very short (on purpose so there's no fuel for wildfire). You can have the smokey winter colors....I want my green grass and lovely wildflowers back.

The wildflowers are trying, but they are struggling. A lot bloom when they get an inch or two tall. I guess they are eager to set seed in what little time they have with no rain falling. The Indian Blankets popped up this week and bloomed before their leaves emerged.

It is gonna be a long summer.

We don't have to drive across the state to get depressed. We can sit here right in our lovely brown grass and get depressed without burning any fossil fuel.

Dawn
Lisa_H OK
12 years ago
Maybe I should have said I find beauty in all seasons in Oklahoma :)

Dawn, I keep my eyes glued on the weather reports hoping you are going to get some. They keep promising....
TexasRanger10
12 years ago
lisa--- I don't think you are crazy at all. I love that too, its my favorite thing about Oklahoma. In winter, the colors of the prairie are simply gorgeous. When its all green in wet years, I am not drawn to it but in winter the subtle beauty is hard to beat. There are very few of us out there, but we are out there as a teeny minority. I like desert landscapes also, the kind of view with no trees, miles of low growing grasses and lots of sky.

I think the panhandle is wonderful but am not drawn much the eastern part of the state which seems too green to my eye. The landscape I try to create reflects this preference but beauty is in the eye of the viewer. I shun lots of green, big flowers and lush plants, rather I choose to grow lots of grey plants, native grasses and what I call rangy shrubs & forbs. Its a dry-scape, the color is subtle. It needs very little irrigation except when establishing a new species. The drier it is, often the better it looks.