Drought gnaws. You can’t point to a day on the calendar and say, “On November 22, drought started.” It sidles into being as day after day passes without rain or snow, or with just enough to tease but not to produce. Animals that can leave start shifting their territories, and brown gradually, creepingly, replaces green on the landscape. The lack of soil moisture makes the air drier, and the air heats up faster, making rain less likely, which dries the soil, and so on in a feedback cycle.
And then the wind begins. And the dust. And something more than dust, something bitter and sweet and rich and terrifying. Continue reading →
So, Sib, Sib-in-Law, and I went to see Black Panther. Little Bit is a bit too little, and Mom and Dad Red don’t do this kind of movie much. Short version: it was a fun action movie with a good story, great effects that did not overwhelm, and you do not have to be current in the Marvel™ canon to keep up with things. You might have to suspend a little disbelief, but hey, super hero movie. Continue reading →
J. L. Curtis, man-of-the-world, former Navy, firearms instructor, master chef, and author-gone-wild, has released the fifth book in his Grey Man series. This is the series that Dorothy Grant and I nick-named Cowboys vs. Drug-Smugglers.
Never count an old man out, even when he’s hanging up his hat!
Deputy Sheriff John Cronin is looking forward to a quiet retirement, working on the ranch, and handing it off to his granddaughter Jesse. And he’s got to pass on a generation worth of investigations, but it’s not as easy as handing over the case files and the keys.
I beta-read part of the book, and it was a real challenge, because I kept getting pulled into the story!
How hard could it be to pump water from the Mississippi River to the Llano Estacado? It’s only a few hundred miles, all uphill, across two or three states. The water in the Red River was already allocated, but the Mississippi had no in-stream requirements or water rights filed, and everyone was always complaining about flooding, so why not? Especially if Dallas or Fort Worth could be persuaded to buy some water to help pay for the pipeline, pumps, and power plants. Continue reading →
Another song that appears later in the book, in a way, is based on an old folk song as well. The scene was inspired by the Wicked Tinkers’ version. Older lyrics below the video.
River of the Hills that Look Like Prairie-Dog Mounds. Yellow House Canyon. River of the Lost Souls in Purgatory. Plains of St. Augustine. Mt. McKinley. Jackson Square. Possum Kingdom Lake. Red River of the North, Colorado River, Colorado River, Rio Colorado, Baton Rouge.
I’ve been reading a book about trails and ways in and around Britain, but an English author and poet who has also written a book of place-terms, the disappearing regional vocabulary of places, weather, and waters. The words are fascinating, and the ideas and special terms tell you a great deal about how the speakers saw the land, what they valued, and what they avoided. The Comanche, for example, used very descriptive names, describing what a feature should look like so that you could recognize it easily. There’s nothing fanciful about “The River near the Hills That Look Like Prairie-Dog Mounds” which today is the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River. Continue reading →
Spring Break has arrived. Little Bit (Aka Red 2.0) and her parents will also be arriving. Blogging – and probably anything else requiring long periods of quiet contemplation – will be light this week.
Are you done, Aunt Dragon? Can we play? Can we go to the park now? Now? Now?
