Outdoor
Assignment Texas: with Russell A. Graves- When it Rains
By contributing writer Russell Graves
The sound of rain dappling the surrounding prairie is a welcome one. For the past few years, the people in Childress County (and most of the rest of Texas) have endured a horrendous drought. In casual conversation, people quizzically wondered aloud when it would rain again and with a certain degree of credibility, questioned if it would rain again.
Drought, according to climatologists, is cyclical. They’ve happened to Texas before and they’ll happen again.
This latest drought has taught Texans a lot about water usage and ultimately, water conservation. Some of those conservation lessons were learned long ago and are being re-adopted.
Drive through West Texas farm country and take a close look at some old farmsteads. Many times you’ll see an old metal cistern behind the homes. The cisterns were there to catch and store rain when it fell for use during the times when the rain did not fall.
Feeling like a modern pioneer, when I built my new home on a piece of rural ground where a house had never stood, I wanted to incorporate old technology into my new design. So I had my friend Gary Clark of Clark ETS, help me design and install a small system that would harvest and store the rainfall from only a single side of one roof.
Unlike the pioneers of old, my captured rainfall will not serve to provide drinking or toilet water for my family. Instead, I’ll use it to water a small vineyard and other landscape features scattered about the yard. That’s important to me considering I suspect that the water district’s restrictions that currently guide our irrigation practices will probably remain the norm from now on. To have any semblance of a landscape, I need to be able to provide my own water and not rely on the rural water system that supplies the house proper.
According to Clark, one square foot of roof captures just over a half a gallon of water with every inch of rain. Therefore, figuring out how much rain your roof will catch becomes a simple math problem. To read more pick up the August 2014 issue of North Texas Farm & Ranch.
By Norman Winter | Horticulturist, Author, Speaker
The National Garden Bureau has designated 2024 as the ‘Year of the Angelonia’ and I am in full celebration mode. As I was preparing for my contribution to the celebration, I was, however, sent into taxonomic trauma.
For the last 26 years of deep love for the Angelonia, or summer snapdragon, I have told everyone via newspaper, radio and television that they were in the Scrophulariaceae family. Since most gardeners don’t like those words, I modified or simplified the snapdragon family, but somebody has tinkered with green industry happiness and moved Angelonia to the Plantaginaceae or plantain family. I immediately reached out to my friend Dr. Allen Ownings, Horticulture Professor Emeritus with the Louisiana State University AgCenter. I said, “Did you know this, or better yet, did you do it?” He said, as I expected, that the Taxonomist group had done it. This reminded me that someone once said taxonomists have to eat, too.
To read more, pick up a copy of the April issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
By Jelly Cocanougher
Brazen rumbles cut through the daylight stillness. Enamored by the grandiose symphony of the firmament, tinged in anticipation from where the light will snap next.
The clouds dance in the sky as a love letter to the electrically-charged synergy of the ground and air. It moves unashamed, reckless, and bold. It is raw power that could command attention for any being, a reminder that we are attuned to the primal opus of flora and fauna. The spirit of the prairie was awakened, the hands of a cowboy rests at the heart of it all, a symphony in combination.
By Tony Dean, [email protected]
There are a handful of mean-spirited plants that seem to have developed a liking to growing in places where they are a nuisance on North Texas grazing lands. One of those plants is definitely tasajillo. I can not count the number of gates I have had to open that required a fight with this prickly foe.
I now realize there is a plausible reason why so many fence lines and gates are home to tasajillo, being that birds eat the seeds, and then deposit them along the fences thus creating a virtual nursery for this unfriendly species.
Tasajillo is a perennial member of the cactus family and can be found in all areas of the state, but with less presence in deep East Texas. It grows as individual plants or as thicket-forming clumps. This cactus seems to be most adapted to loamy soils and is often found in association with mesquite.
To read more, pick up a copy of the March issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
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