A hard blow

6/14/09 Sunday
We had one of those hard West Texas storms blow in yesterday. We were on our way to KD’s barbeque, where our church group was having a get together, when it came in. There had been warnings on TV about this thunderstorm, telling of dangerous high winds. When it hit we were on the interstate and the wind would push semi trucks into the other lane, making them wobble.

At KD’s we had a great time. Often at these kinds of events I can’t process all the activity and conversations surrounding me. When this happens Cherie knows to get me to a quiet corner to help isolate me from it but this time I was very cognizant and able to hold an intelligent conversation. I talked to Mike, who sat at our table, about my hopes for the farm and at one point about some of the things I’ve seen. I’ve seen much and would like to write about it but this blog would not be the appropriate forum for that. Perhaps I can do so with some form of anonymity through another site. These were worlds that circumstances placed me in, worlds I didn’t belong to or truly fit in though I had to for my survival. Having Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of high functioning autism, meant that I rarely fit in anywhere. I’ve seen and heard many things I would have preferred not to. Again I was encouraged to write a book when we shared the story of how Cherie and I were torn apart and reunited twenty years later.

When we got home we were shocked to see how much sand had blown in the house. It’s nothing new, and has happened before, but this was particularly bad. Imagine, if you could, someone with one of those motorized blowers used for yard work running it at full throttle with a bucket of fine sand that he fed into it as he went through out the house. I am not exaggerating. With this old house and old windows drafty is an understatement. The first thing we had to do was change the sheets on the bed. It had a solid layer of sand where you could barely tell what color the bed spread was. I took a picture of the beautiful curtains Cherie made that are hung in the office. She almost cried. This will take days to clean up. Sand is in and on everything. We hope it won’t damage our printer.

This morning I went out to survey what this storm did to the farm. It’s not good. I’ll have to clean out the evaporative air conditioner this morning before I go to church. The crops have been hit hard, real hard, nothing has been spared. But this may not all be due to the storm. Yesterday I mixed up some of the expensive organic stuff and sprayed it on everything. Insecticidal soap is a big tool used in organic farming so I put a tablespoon of the soap we got from the biodiesel guy in two gallons of the mix. It’s a by product of making biodiesel and we were told it is almost a pure product.

The beans have been savagely attacked by some kind of little bug and the leaves were all deformed from that. Probably some kind of virus or disease transmitted by the bugs. I think there is a strong possibility that this may have caused much of the damage. I’ll have to wait and see but I may have destroyed everything we had planted. Many of the leaves are brittle and just crumble when you touch them. The sand blasting didn’t help anything either and even the weeds out where I didn’t spray are in bad shape so I can’t be sure. It’s hard country out here. One of the vital musts I need to accomplish is getting a system of wind break trees planted in order to protect everything we plant. That will take years before the trees are big enough to be effective. Nothing will happen fast here. Much of the work I do is creating the infrastructure needed to make this a viable enterprise. Because I’ve been working so hard to build this little has been planted. I just get worn out and can’t seem to get to it. I’m tired, I’m frustrated, I wonder if there is any point. I told Vickie at yesterday’s get together that I need to be more positive about things and not be such a Sad Sack about everything. That can be hard to do sometimes. It is depressing to see so much work be trashed, either by the weather or by my own hand. I’m not entirely sure which but regardless stuff looks pretty poor out there now.