Saturday, October 16, 2010

Mother Nature's Schizophrenic Tandy Hills Behavior & A Dried Up Trinity River Ruining Inner Tubing

With only 16 days until November arrives, Mother Nature, in Fort Worth's Tandy Hills, is putting on a somewhat schizophrenic show. Like Mother Nature can not decide if it is spring or fall, as witnessed by the spring-like display of wildflower color in the picture above. Blooming at the same time as the fall-like foliage in the picture below.


I do not have any clue what this clash of seasons portends for winter. A record breaking 100 degree plus day in the middle of January? A Christmas Eve tornado? A blizzard with 5 foot snow drifts?

I must say, hiking on the Tandy Hills today was as near perfect as it can get. Perfect temperature, perfect wind blowing.

An interesting item is sitting next to Tandy Shrine II. I did not take a picture, because I knew my photo skills would not be able to manage a decent picture of it. Someone found a long, maybe 20 feet long, sort of rusted, tapered, thick wire type piece of junk. I suspected it was laying nest to the Shrine because the person who drug it there found that he/she could not stick it in the pipe without knocking the pipe over.

But, in the oft chance the the pipe dragger had not attempted wire insertion, I tried it. I quickly found that what I suspected, was true. The pipe could not support the wire. That and the effort left my hands a rusty mess.

Since it is Saturday, of course I was on the Tandy Hills. And equally of course, afterwards, I went to Town Talk. On the way to Town Talk I saw the Trinity River is the lowest I've seen it. On the west side of the Beach Street Bridge the river is down to just a couple feet wide, with a mud bar almost reaching from the south side of the river to the north. I should have stopped and taken a picture. I do not think I could muster the energy, later today, to head out to Gateway Park and pedal my bike out to the dried up inner tubing mecca.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get a closer look at the disappearing river. I wonder if the Trinity is drying up due to the Tarrant Regional Water District over selling water sucking permits to the Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drillers? Those boys suck millions of gallons of water from that long-suffering river.

What happens when you happen to float on your inner tube near one of the giant water sucking straws? I guess this is not currently an issue, with there currently not being enough water to float anything but random pieces of litter.

Where are the Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drillers doing their water sucking now that they've sucked the Trinity dry?

No comments: