Black Blizzards!

So much for hoping things might get better…around here it’s been getting worse – much worse! The weather reports have been filled with forecasts for black blizzards and they’ve been striking right across the mid-west. Seems we’re not alone in this party in Oklahoma. Turns out Mr Mathews was right – this is like a replay of the dust bowl of the 30s. It’s all because the farmers have been ploughing their crops back in. The problem is when you also have no rain for months on end, that means oven-baked topsoil. Throw in a bit of wind and jackpot, you’ve won the dust storm lottery. 

Everybody is hoping, praying, for rain, and everyone seems to think it’s all the weathermen’s fault. Talk about shooting the messenger! All I know is that farms are going bust real quick. A few are still managing to ride it out somehow, but they are barely making enough money to cover their costs. Of course the price for things like bread have gone through the roof. Now we have to import a lot of the wheat we use from abroad. Some people say, and I think they may be right, if things carry on like this for another year, we’ll see people fighting for food in the supermarkets. Now in this country with so many people owning a gun, rioting and personal firepower make a pretty bad mix. So like I was saying, for all sorts of reasons it’s gotta rain or it’s going to start getting ugly, fast.

Things are grinding everyone down. I’ve even picked up on Dom’s habit when I visit Twister Diner. They have an old barometer there that he taps every time he walks past to see if the needle moves. I’ve found myself doing the same, but that stupid needle keeps pointing to fair, like it’s been glued there. All the pictures of twisters they’ve got plastered over the walls of the diner, seem an impossible memory now. But of course they were real, much too real. This vid reminds me reminds me just how scary tornadoes can be in real life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6JL1W9wZHg

Hard to believe that people like the Sky Hawks would deliberately go chasing after them. Brave and crazy all wrapped up together. Of course Dom’s dad was the bravest of them all…Sigh. Let’s just say is there’s been far too much suffering around here – and this drought is making it just worse. For all of us caught up in this, here’s praying there will be some light at the end of tunnel soon. Keep the faith, people.