Well I just got back from our little razzoo over into the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. There, all anybody could talk about was how much rain they’d had. And the days were cool there, and foggy in the mornings. It looked like the tour advertisement for summer in Ireland!

Returning to Texas, I found the ranch in its usual August garb. The grass is the color of a mountain lion’s pelt, and gnawed off to the ground. The mesquite bushes are following the dogs around.

A friend came to ride with me. He was hoping to teach his young mare to cross the creek, but when we got there it didn’t have enough water in it to choke a piss ant! We rode on to the Persimmon Hill pasture to move the corrientes out into the bottom. A good many had already engineered passage through a weak spot in the bob wire fence! ( typical Twin Creeks fences are often somewhat more permeable than prison fences)

Turns out it wasn’t much of a cattle drive, as soon as they saw a few tufts of the “sort of green” grass through the opened gate, they poured out like fire ants out of a kicked mound!

It’s a little warm, too. I was opening a gate today and it felt like as if I’d caught hold of a stove pipe. The horses are sweating just standing in the field, and the salt is forming a white frost on the dry parts.

The “Dog days” are here, and we’re praying for a Norther.

Even the wild hogs have packed up and headed for cooler country! Around here the ground is so hard they can’t root.

And it’s getting close to time to start planting oats for winter grazing, but at this rate the plow will just skitter across the ground and strike sparks, and we don’t need any encouragement to start a fire.

Well, I got to go out and water the prickly pear before it wilts, see ya soon!