A Much Needed Makeover

My parents' home on a farm near Stafford, Kansas

Regrettably, Mother Nature is serving a second helping of last summer's extreme drought to Kansas and its neighboring state, Colorado, according to the High Plains Regional Climate Center, who recently ranked drought conditions in these states as D3.  D3's Extreme drought is just one level away from the highest drought category, D4's Exceptional Drought.

The grass and shrubbery in front of my parents' home on the family farm in Kansas show what D3 looks like. Dead!  I predict that if these bushes reach the highest D4 category, they'll become burning bushes.  Yikes!  This shubbery had to go before the whole house went up in flames.

Shadow investigates a dead shrub while Duke takes a drink of water.

Luckily, two nights of thunderstorms on June 14th and 15th offered a brief respite, softening the top layer of rock-hard soil.  The rains also rested our work-weary family members who were able to sleep in both mornings. 

Larry visits with Jon and Phyllis McClure

When Larry Curtis, my high school classmate who farms down the road stopped by, we all congregated on the back stoop to trade "war stories" of harvest.  Of course, wheat fires that had occurred in our community during harvest were the lead stories.

The Texas custom cutter operating this combine a few miles west of our farm
dove out of the cab when a hot ball bearing ignited the wheat stubble
and instantly engulfed this machine. 
Luckily, the Texan survived!

After Larry left, I tried to recruit the following McClures to help in this makeover, but they mockingly ridiculed my transformation aspirations.  Won't someone--anyone!--help me?

My brother Jon and my mom, Phyllis McClure

My only volunteer was my nephew, Miles McClure, who ably yanked the yews out of the yard by chaining them one after another to the four-wheeler.

Miles quickly removed 14 dead shrubs.

Sadly, Miles and his wife Teresa left that afternoon to fly home to California.  Not surprisingly, the rest of our work crew scattered, finding other jobs to do far away from my landscaping project.  It fell to me to finish this makeover on my own.

The pile of rocks I dumped on the front porch is out of sight,
but earned the mocking moniker, Cindy's Mountain

Shoveling up the ground cover rocks, I dumped them on the front porch.  Lacking any landscaping design skills, I opted to simply buy the same variety of shrubs that my parents had planted a decade ago. 

2 golden spirea, 5 boxwoods, and 4 yews

When it came time to use the post-hole digger to gouge out the required-size holes to accommodate the new shrubs' root balls, I was thankful no one was around to laugh at my efforts. I was even more relieved that no one was there to take my picture since I was a sweaty mess.

The Dark Knight Bluebeard is in the foreground of this photo.

I did add one new shrub, a drought-resistant Dark Knight Bluebeard shrub which I stuck in the ground near the backporch.  I'm hoping it survives long enough to offer several seasons of its promised fragrant deep bluish-purple blossoms. 

My parents, Willard & Phyllis McClure, shown here before my makeover began.

Still, I was pleased with the end result.  My parents were, too!

Soaker hose stretches all the way down to the spirea bushes.
The green circles are termite traps which is why rocks instead of
wood chip ground cover were used.

Now, I'm praying that someone--anyone!--will remember to turn on the soaker hose each evening until either these shrubs are well established or this drought ends.  I'm fervently praying for Option 2.

Grow, little shrubs, grow!

Maybe then someone--anyone!--will reseed the grass!