DRY.

Facts about the drought in Texas:

• This is the worst one-year drought on record
• This summer was the hottest of any state's record going back to 1895
• August was the hottest month in Texas history
• Only 7.47 inches of rain has fallen this year

(taken from http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/wild-facts-about-the-texas-drought)

Here's what it looks like at our place:
 

Yes, that is a 12-inch deep crack in the ground.

I will admit that I absolutely LOVE the sun.  I love warm weather and I don't mind hot weather.  The other day I found myself being thankful for a sunny day.  And then I realized I should actually be praying for rain.  I like thunderstorms (or at least I used to before our dog became deathly afraid of them) and I like rain showers.  I do not like day after day after day of gray skies and rainy weather.  That is why I live in Texas and not the Pacific Northwest!  HOWEVER, at this point I am willing to endure all of that to get some relief from the terrible drought we are having.  It is predicted that 10% of all the trees in the DFW area will die from the drought conditions within the next 2 years.  So we are watering, watering, watering all of our big oaks in hopes of saving them.

The ONE positive to having such dry conditions right now is that there is work that can be done!  On the back corner of our property, we have a creek.  Well, it used to be a creek.  Right now it is a ditch with some pools of pretty nasty water here and there.  Being optimistic that it will soon rain, we are in the process of getting all the debris cleaned out of the creek bed and thinning out the trees around it.

Yes, those are TIRES that the previous owners dumped in the creek.  We will also get to pay to have this large concrete chunk removed....

We look forward to the day when the creek is running again.  In the meantime, the work is progressing and we are praying for rain (as soon as the creek bed is cleared out!)

This week I'm off to the Planning and Zoning board to get the property properly zoned for building. (say that 3 times fast!)  For some reason it doesn't matter that there is already a house there... because it was zoned agriculture and not residential we can't build a new house on it until the zoning is changed.  EIGHT WEEKS??? I about fell out of my chair when the guy said it could take that long. What are the chances that about the time we can break ground the heavens open and we are inundated with rain?