fresh water (in the rain)
If you want to get really worried about the future of water in places that are above the Ogalalla Aquifer, you could read Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains, by Lucas Bessire.
Or you could look at the shifts in annual rainfall and think about how long it takes to recharge our aquifer. And think about how farmers are already moving away from growing certain high-water-consuming crops. (Who REALLY needs corn, anyway?)
Or you could think about how rural counties are falling all over themselves to get data centers to come here. And then think about how the data centers claim their eventual water usage will be “about the same as two houses.”
And maybe, sometime in the future you can think fondly about the days where there WAS fresh water out.
Hockley County, Texas
photographed 6.14.2026
alma r.
When I find places like this – abandoned farmhouses – I don’t know anything about who lived there or why they left, of course. That leaves me to create a narrative, which is usually more or less the same: farming/ranching got too unaffordable and the family had to leave.
This farmhouse had at least two resident owls. And a brand-new KitchenAid dishwasher, still in the original box, and a stack of printed book-covers like I remember from school but that I don’t think anyone uses any more. And I wonder if Alma R signed the wall the day she left, or if that was a later addition by some visiting vandals.
Cochran County, Texas
photographed 5.31.2026
the capture
Yes, indeed I did back up on that one-lane dirt road for about a quarter of a mile because I didn’t think this was something that needed to be left un-photographed. (A more observant photographer probably would have managed to stop the moment it came into view. But I needed some time to decide if it was worth the effort to back up.)
I mean, it’s sort of a cliche to photograph a tumbleweed caught up in a barbed wire fence, but I guess it’s a cliche for a reason.
near Inez, New Mexico
photographed 5.31.2026
gro-gas
Several years ago my friend Ron showed his credentials as a location scout by telling me about a tiny town called Bledsoe, which has a lovely, abandoned school. I’ve photographed the school several times but this was the first time I’d ever stopped to get photos at the Gro-Gas, which currently offers neither of those things.
Bledsoe, Texas
photographed 5.31.2026
high plains gold
My traveling companion – who’s Not From Here – suggested a u-turn to get this photo. I did not argue since he was right.
Because I *am* From Here, there’s a good possibility that I wouldn’t have really noticed the photographic possibilities the way he did. Which just goes to show…something? That I am largely unobservant? Or that new eyes see new things? Probably the first of those two things, if I am being honest.
Floyd County, Texas
photographed 5.30.2026
One Day | One Image 