Dust Storms

The stories told by the pioneers in this part of the world are replete with tales of dust storms. When they broke up the sagebrush and plowed the land, they loosened the very fragile soil. My mother-in-law told stories of taking shovels to church on Sunday to shovel the dirt away from the church doors in order to get them open... Over the years as farmers learned how better to farm this volcanic soil, leaving lots of organic matter on the surface, dust storms happened less frequently.


For some reason, there have been more vicious wind storms this past year then we've had for a long time. It started with the one last October on the Sunday after the Mennonite Country Auction. There have been several since then that could be seen on satellite photos!



This is a field along Rosenoff Road as we drove into Moses Lake yesterday --








And this is the dust cloud (in the bottom portion of the picture) looking north up the coulee from where Auntie Violet is parked --

Fortunately, today was mainly quiet and actually cool...