Sand storms. Lubbock, TX. Drought. And critters.

[GordonJ]

West TX is not for the faint of heart (then what the heck am I doing here).

In the last few days: killed a 4 foot 8 inch rattlesnake. Cleaned out a black widow's nest, chased away an ornery skunk...became aware of scorpions, and that was just the start of my week.

NOW, dust storms? Gusts up to 60mph sweeping across the W. Texas plains.

Are we headed toward another dust bowl? Will the alfafa crop be destroyed?

Is there doom and gloom ahead for the Southwestern USA?

Will THEY (you all know the they) force the Great Lake States to send water to the American SW?

What's next? Locusts?

I can't get Marty Robbins out of my head, and his song of El Paso.

Having a pretty senorita may be, in my Yankee opinion, the only reason to come to El Paso. Don't be hating us now, it's just my opinion...

you Texans may say the very same thing about Cuyahoga Falls, OH, only difference is...

we DON'T have pretty senoritas there...they all moved to Calif. HA!

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by GordonJ

West TX is not for the faint of heart (then what the heck am I doing here).

In the last few days: killed a 4 foot 8 inch rattlesnake. Cleaned out a black widow's nest, chased away an ornery skunk...became aware of scorpions, and that was just the start of my week.

Hi Gordon,

Sounds like there's no lack of excitement there in New Mexico and West Texas!

I've been to a different part of NM (more around the Santa Fe-Taos region), and it was amazingly beautiful... (Luckily, I managed to avoid any snakes and scorpions!)

There's a ghost town in the Taos area called Elizabethtown... It's a fascinating place! Some of the buildings in Elizabethtown are still preserved, as nowadays it's on private land... Elizabethtown even had a serial killer, Charles Kennedy, living there at one stage (he eventually was killed by vigilantes).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabethtown,_New_Mexico

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/nm-etown.html

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-charleskennedy.html

The guy who runs the "museum" in Elizabethtown is an interesting character himself... (Forgot his name. I was there in 2009.)

Ghost towns. I wonder if there could be an opportunity there? There certainly are a lot of interesting ghost towns around... Especially in areas that had a "gold rush" 100+ years ago or so (like Elizabethtown did)...

By the way, speaking of alfalfa... I just recently started adding alfalfa sprouts as a regular part of my diet. Very easy to add - just rinse and eat. And I feel much better... You can add it to almost any dish or sandwich (even to soups). I recommend it to everyone. Yum!

Best wishes,

Dien

Originally Posted by Dien Rice

By the way, speaking of alfalfa... I just recently started adding alfalfa sprouts as a regular part of my diet. Very easy to add - just rinse and eat. And I feel much better... You can add it to almost any dish or sandwich (even to soups). I recommend it to everyone. Yum!

Best wishes,

Dien

One of the survivalist guys recommended sprouts as nutritious and very easy to produce. It's like a three day cycle you keep going, always starting a batch and harvesting after three days. He recommended red wheat, as I recall. It's cheap to buy a fifty pound sack of wheat and will feed one for a long time.

Here's a source, although a local feed store might be cheaper. From my farming experience, I remember alfalfa seed being very high priced, like $30 a pound. That's been years ago though.