O Rain, Where Art Thou?
In THE GRAPES OF WRATH, John Steinbeck devotes endless pages to descriptions of dirt clods, dying corn, and fickle rain clouds that vanish for what seems an eternity. Poor, disheveled sharecroppers tie bandannas over their noses to keep from drowning in dead seas of dust. Only he could have made such gritty detail compelling enough to win the Pulitzer in 1940, and then get a good toehold in the journey toward his 1962 Nobel Prize. It turns out that dust and drought can grow a bumper crop of awards as he was knee-deep in literary achievement.
Born just three years after the end of the Great Dust Bowl, our mother has always felt a strong sympathy for its victims. The folks whose heritage and livelihoods had been baked into the soil through time-honored traditions, perished like tumbleweeds into the parched wind, rootless, penniless and hopeless. No matter how hard they fought to survive, no one arm-wrestled Mother Nature to the ground and won. Seventy-five percent of our country was affected. Combined with the Great Depression, Americans must have felt like the sky was falling. Not with rain, though, just a dust devilish misery.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. How unbearable! And yet, it is said that time heals all wounds. That is good because local ranch soil has turned to powder, and Central Texas is beginning to look a lot like its West Texas neighbor.
You might imagine what it means to be a rancher during today's haunting by America's Great Dust Bowl past. The ghosts of grass blades are all that remain in the Hill Country. All leaves of green have turned hazy brown and can sustain precious little life, even a hard-scrabble existence. Bare, plantless crusts are cropping up and spreading like ant hills. Our family knows this first hand.
Mom runs a Blanco County ranch that has been in our family since the 1800's, and does it well. Known as the local Bull Whisperer, she has the reputation for having great internal strength and a commanding presence. This is all she needs to talk a 2,500 pound Beefmaster bull into walking up the chute and loading itself into the cattle trailer. Bulls do it because she says so. Like children, they do not want to be grounded for eternity. She raised the four of us, so bulls are no problem. But, there is more to this story than a fairy-tale ending.
In the current drought, cattle business has become harder than the nails in a pine coffin. There is nothing much for livestock to eat unless she brings them food from outside the property. There is liquid feed, stored in containers that wild hogs knock the lids off of and steal during the night. At $9.00 a pop, bags of ranch cubes must be distributed several times a week. I know these coarse cow cubes, the way they feel in the palm of my hand and even how they taste. In the 1960's, my sister and I ate them like candy to the calls of mourning doves. At sunrise, we perched on the milking shed's tin roof as our grandmother worked below. The sounds of milk spraying into a metal bucket remain in my memory as pleasant as rainfall, but neither sound has been heard in a while.
Now, every animal guards food like it may not come again. If you throw out bales of hay to cattle, they will not leave until every bit is gone. Because the ranch is too dry to grow its own, hay must come from elsewhere. This spells trouble for any rancher. Per thousand pound round bale, decent hay costs from $100 to $120, plus an additional $20 to $30 dollars each for shipping. There is cheaper hay to be found, but its price is more costly than money. Rolled inside their centers are pink thistles and goat head weeds, aggressive plants that will take root and choke out future green pastures. It is a savings that kills in the end.
A mountain lion (Puma Concolor) has migrated far from home and been spotted on the ranch. Normally, they eat jackrabbits, javelinas or rodents, but word has it that this kitty attacked a local horse. Like everything else, it is simply trying to survive.
My brothers sometimes like to camp out along the Pedernales River, but now is not the time for that. These are fit, savvy, intelligent men who are not afraid of much. They could not, though, outrun a puma. There were no such creatures as mountain lions or wild hogs on the ranches of Central Texas when I was a girl. Now, hungry rattlers emerging in greater numbers, are competing for the same rodent population as the puma. Even that is dwindling. Warnings abound on the internet advising adults not to let unattended children and small pets play outside. The presence of all these nightmerish haints remind me of pioneer tales our grandfather told us. So much has changed, but not our mother.
She saves every bit of compost which used to go in the garden, but now carries it to where deer are not too timid to eat. Not even an onion skin or carrot top goes to waste. She knows that a deer will eat whatever, and has rescued at least two fawns whose mothers had been killed alongside our county road. They eventually returned to the wild, but not without her help. She showed us how to bottle feed them until they lost the wobble in their legs. She protected and loved on them. She even tried to keep them from eating chili out of the dog's bowl, but a deer will eat Hormel as quick as look at it. If she has anything to do with it no creature crossing her path will starve. In her own way, she is rewriting THE GRAPES OF WRATH to give drought-stricken animals a fighting chance. She is wrestling Mother Nature to the ground and has her in an armlock. My bet is on Mom. She won't give up. She never has. If time heals all wounds, perhaps the healing is in the struggle. We are all scanning the horizon for rain clouds. They will come again. So will rainbows.
Born just three years after the end of the Great Dust Bowl, our mother has always felt a strong sympathy for its victims. The folks whose heritage and livelihoods had been baked into the soil through time-honored traditions, perished like tumbleweeds into the parched wind, rootless, penniless and hopeless. No matter how hard they fought to survive, no one arm-wrestled Mother Nature to the ground and won. Seventy-five percent of our country was affected. Combined with the Great Depression, Americans must have felt like the sky was falling. Not with rain, though, just a dust devilish misery.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. How unbearable! And yet, it is said that time heals all wounds. That is good because local ranch soil has turned to powder, and Central Texas is beginning to look a lot like its West Texas neighbor.
You might imagine what it means to be a rancher during today's haunting by America's Great Dust Bowl past. The ghosts of grass blades are all that remain in the Hill Country. All leaves of green have turned hazy brown and can sustain precious little life, even a hard-scrabble existence. Bare, plantless crusts are cropping up and spreading like ant hills. Our family knows this first hand.
Mom runs a Blanco County ranch that has been in our family since the 1800's, and does it well. Known as the local Bull Whisperer, she has the reputation for having great internal strength and a commanding presence. This is all she needs to talk a 2,500 pound Beefmaster bull into walking up the chute and loading itself into the cattle trailer. Bulls do it because she says so. Like children, they do not want to be grounded for eternity. She raised the four of us, so bulls are no problem. But, there is more to this story than a fairy-tale ending.
In the current drought, cattle business has become harder than the nails in a pine coffin. There is nothing much for livestock to eat unless she brings them food from outside the property. There is liquid feed, stored in containers that wild hogs knock the lids off of and steal during the night. At $9.00 a pop, bags of ranch cubes must be distributed several times a week. I know these coarse cow cubes, the way they feel in the palm of my hand and even how they taste. In the 1960's, my sister and I ate them like candy to the calls of mourning doves. At sunrise, we perched on the milking shed's tin roof as our grandmother worked below. The sounds of milk spraying into a metal bucket remain in my memory as pleasant as rainfall, but neither sound has been heard in a while.
Now, every animal guards food like it may not come again. If you throw out bales of hay to cattle, they will not leave until every bit is gone. Because the ranch is too dry to grow its own, hay must come from elsewhere. This spells trouble for any rancher. Per thousand pound round bale, decent hay costs from $100 to $120, plus an additional $20 to $30 dollars each for shipping. There is cheaper hay to be found, but its price is more costly than money. Rolled inside their centers are pink thistles and goat head weeds, aggressive plants that will take root and choke out future green pastures. It is a savings that kills in the end.
A mountain lion (Puma Concolor) has migrated far from home and been spotted on the ranch. Normally, they eat jackrabbits, javelinas or rodents, but word has it that this kitty attacked a local horse. Like everything else, it is simply trying to survive.
My brothers sometimes like to camp out along the Pedernales River, but now is not the time for that. These are fit, savvy, intelligent men who are not afraid of much. They could not, though, outrun a puma. There were no such creatures as mountain lions or wild hogs on the ranches of Central Texas when I was a girl. Now, hungry rattlers emerging in greater numbers, are competing for the same rodent population as the puma. Even that is dwindling. Warnings abound on the internet advising adults not to let unattended children and small pets play outside. The presence of all these nightmerish haints remind me of pioneer tales our grandfather told us. So much has changed, but not our mother.
She saves every bit of compost which used to go in the garden, but now carries it to where deer are not too timid to eat. Not even an onion skin or carrot top goes to waste. She knows that a deer will eat whatever, and has rescued at least two fawns whose mothers had been killed alongside our county road. They eventually returned to the wild, but not without her help. She showed us how to bottle feed them until they lost the wobble in their legs. She protected and loved on them. She even tried to keep them from eating chili out of the dog's bowl, but a deer will eat Hormel as quick as look at it. If she has anything to do with it no creature crossing her path will starve. In her own way, she is rewriting THE GRAPES OF WRATH to give drought-stricken animals a fighting chance. She is wrestling Mother Nature to the ground and has her in an armlock. My bet is on Mom. She won't give up. She never has. If time heals all wounds, perhaps the healing is in the struggle. We are all scanning the horizon for rain clouds. They will come again. So will rainbows.
Posted by Marci Henna at 9/3/2011 1:39 PM 
Categories: loved ones
Tags: Marci Henna rain drought John Steinbeck cattle Blanco County Central Texas The Texas Hill Country The Mind P
Categories: loved ones
Tags: Marci Henna rain drought John Steinbeck cattle Blanco County Central Texas The Texas Hill Country The Mind P
Oh Marci, this is so beautifully written. It brought tears to my eyes. My Dad and I visited Big Bend last May and the area was devastated with drought. The black bears (and we saw six) were obviously starving. The saddest sight was seeing a mama and her three cubs near a parking lot on a trailhead. The babies looked thin and scraggly. I have often wondered since then if they are still alive. I wish your mother lived in Big Bend!
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What a lovely tribute to your tribe! Love it!
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you MUST submit this to some magazine for publication! Loved it.
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Dear Marci,
You've written such a visual and telling description such hope for happier days to come.
Sitting here in Innsbruck, Austria with the surrounding Alps and nearby river flowing with mountain waters, it's evident the grass is not always greener on the other side, but wish we had more brave and loving folks like your mom around!
With best wishes,
Marc
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M,
I like this story! Would probably like your mom also!! At some level of deprivation, this one seems linked to your "Argentina" story.
This one talks about human sympathy for species that can't help behaving out of character. The human bandidos in Argentina(substitute any country where there are "very bad" times) rob the haves to feed their have-not families, confirming the veneer of separation between man and Puma. The thin line between dust burgers for dinner and abject poverty is a progressive one, leading to what civilized society refers to as criminal acts. There are those tearful crocodiles, dressed in suits of human skin, who say let's party hearty in our safe harbors and let the dumb human animals eat tea leaves with our sympathy. Thought for me to pursue - can widely shared sympathy heal all wounds?
The rainbow at this story's end may come again (in certain climates), but desertification in these parts is here to stay - past the spell we knew as major drought.
I could have misread; "O Rain" is an allegory, right? (Clearly, I need to Goggle up blog protocol.)
Jerry
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Marci, what a tribute. I'm betting on your mom, too! I know her kindness, concern, and resilience. I, too, know her gentle touch that helped me through the dreaded c-word. I am proud to be her sister.
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Absolutely loved it! I saw the pictures Colin put up on facebood, terribly sad. Thanks for writing this!
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Wonderful story! You painted a very accurate picture.
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