I understand your obsession with Downton Abbey, Skybird. I'm hooked on it, too.

Believe it. I was there. Born 1929 in NE Colorado.
Only thing is, I have seen this program before. Don't like watching it for bad memories.

This is a new version of the story, Kenny, and the first two hours were every bit as good as I'd expect a Ken Burns production to be. I was thinking about you while I was watching it and was wondering if you'd watch it or not. I can't imagine living thru even a little part of it--and it went on for ten years! Inconceivable!

I thought the first part did a really good job of explaining how the grasslands were "manipulated"--at least in part at the urging of the government, until they morphed into the catastrophe of the dust bowl. There were definitely some things I had never heard about before, like "suitcase farmers," and how the change in the type of plow they used--to a cheaper one that could plow more, more quickly, left the soil far more vulnerable to the ensuing catastrophe.

They also talked about "dust pneumonia" and all the deaths it caused---and I'm really glad you didn't succumb to that, Kenny, and that you're here with us all on RMG!

Sure am glad the "folks" who caused the dust bowl eventually learned and figured out how to "fix" all the mistakes that were made!

Skybird

Posted by skybird . . .how the change in the type of plow they used--to a cheaper one that could plow more, more quickly, left the soil far more vulnerable to the ensuing catastrophe. . . I'm really glad you didn't succumb to that, Kenny, and that you're here with us all on RMG!

We are all glad about that, Skybird. But, I think they could have used a farmer's help when showing plowing scenes while talking about the types used. Captioning is sometimes off by quite a bit but I didn't see a "Lister plow" when they were talking about it being a better & earlier choice than a mouldboard plow that only throws the soil in 1 direction.

I hope I'm not just talking thru my hat here but I don't think that you can plow grassland with a Lister plow unless all you were doing is cutting irrigation ditches. It is used for row crops on ground that has been already cultivated. For protection from wind erosion, I suppose it must be preferable to plows that throw soil only 1 way. Still, it would have to be unsuitable for growing grain.

Then, they were showing a disc harrow when talking about moldboard plows and when a chisel plow came on the screen, it would have been nice if they'd said something about its importance in limiting erosion instead of saying nothing at all.

Maybe it takes an Einstein to clearly point out that it was insane to continue doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result - but, what was the alternative? I hope that the next part gets us to what was done besides the wholesale flight that was necessary for so many.

Steve

Denver_Designer,

Welcome to the RMG forum!

You have a very nice blog!

Steve