We took a brief tour around the area where the old family farm was located. As I child, I remember driving out to see the farm on rutted old farm roads between old fence lines. The red clay was dotted with scrub grass, tumbleweeds and cactus plants. As my elderly aunt reminded everyone today, when I was so small I could stand in the back of an old stationwagon, I pointed out at the dirt that was kicked up by tires on the dry road and yelled “Fire! Fire!” at all that red dust glowing in the tail lights.
These days, the country roads around the old farm have all been re-graded and layered with white gravel to accommodate all the big trucks that rolled out to the wells as they were being drilled and set up, and from which oil and gas are now transported on a regular basis. Oil and gas wells, and their accompanying small towers to store oil, and combined gas and oil, are everywhere you look.
After four years of almost no rain, this area had rain recently, so there was also a good amount of moisture to be seen on the red clay, in the road and in puddles near the cactus plants that grow along the fence line. Standing water — a rarity out here — could be seen in the ravines crated by tiny canyons in the landscape.
This part of western Oklahoma looks flat because you can see from miles as you drive across on the interstate, but it is actually an undulating landscape of small hills and valleys, including little canyons carved out of the red clay.
