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Description
Another day has almost come and gone
Can't imagine what else could go wrong
Sometimes I'd like to hide away somewhere and lock the door
A single battle lost, but not the war
'Cause tomorrow's another day
And I'm thirsty anyway
So bring on the rain.
[link]

Kansas, 1934.

I've been wanting to do something Dust Bowl themed for quite awhile now. idk if I like this one, though.

A little bit of history:

The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms and drought that affected the Great Plains of the United States and Canada during the 1930s (approx. 1930-1936). Like most of the world's environmental disasters, this one was caused by both natural and human factors. Long periods of severe drought were coupled with decades upon decades of poor farming techniques, with no crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops, or other techniques to prevent soil erosion. Plowing of the virgin topsoil of the plains region displaced the natural grasses that kept the soil in place and held in moisture. Without these natural anchors to keep the soil in place, it turned to dust and blew in immense dark clouds to the east. Sometimes these dust storms, known as "black blizzards," reached all the way to New York and Washington, DC.

The Dust Bowl affected over 100,000,000 acres of land in the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, Colorado, western Kansas, and New Mexico. It rendered millions of acres of once-fertile farmland useless and forced the migration of hundreds of thousands of people westward. Many of these people went to California, where they were known as "Okies." As this was during the Great Depression, they often found conditions little better than those they had left, and had to scrape by on the meager wages of a migrant worker.

The Dust Bowl was one of those topics we seemed to read a lot of books about in middle school, along with various pioneer-y type stories. And of course the classics Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath that everyone else seems to read as well Also, in 8th grade we had to take Kansas History which I despised at the time, having no interest in Kansas' history, lol and this was one of the major topics covered. Eventually I came to identify a lot with the pioneer stories.

As Kansas would tell you casually, times were hard. There wasn't any money to spare; she kept the little she had in a shoebox tucked under her mattress. Food was often scarce, but she learned to fight the hunger pangs. A lot of people left, which hurt her, but she understood. The sun and stars always seemed to be obscured by a haze of dust, and she often found it hard to breathe for all the dust in her lungs. However, as with all things, she gritted her teeth and persevered. She never stopped to complain, and if she ever wondered why it was happening to her, she never expressed it aloud. Instead, she did what she needed to do to survive, further strengthening her resilient and independent mindset. She always says of that time, "if you wanted something to happen, you had to do it yourself. No one else was going to help you; everyone was just trying to survive, same as you. You didn't really think about anything else, just 'what must I do to feed myself and my family today?' And then you did that thing."

Description
Another day has almost come and gone
Can't imagine what else could go wrong
Sometimes I'd like to hide away somewhere and lock the door
A single battle lost, but not the war
'Cause tomorrow's another day
And I'm thirsty anyway
So bring on the rain.
[link]

Kansas, 1934.

I've been wanting to do something Dust Bowl themed for quite awhile now. idk if I like this one, though.

A little bit of history:

The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms and drought that affected the Great Plains of the United States and Canada during the 1930s (approx. 1930-1936). Like most of the world's environmental disasters, this one was caused by both natural and human factors. Long periods of severe drought were coupled with decades upon decades of poor farming techniques, with no crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops, or other techniques to prevent soil erosion. Plowing of the virgin topsoil of the plains region displaced the natural grasses that kept the soil in place and held in moisture. Without these natural anchors to keep the soil in place, it turned to dust and blew in immense dark clouds to the east. Sometimes these dust storms, known as "black blizzards," reached all the way to New York and Washington, DC.

The Dust Bowl affected over 100,000,000 acres of land in the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, Colorado, western Kansas, and New Mexico. It rendered millions of acres of once-fertile farmland useless and forced the migration of hundreds of thousands of people westward. Many of these people went to California, where they were known as "Okies." As this was during the Great Depression, they often found conditions little better than those they had left, and had to scrape by on the meager wages of a migrant worker.

The Dust Bowl was one of those topics we seemed to read a lot of books about in middle school, along with various pioneer-y type stories. And of course the classics Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath that everyone else seems to read as well Also, in 8th grade we had to take Kansas History which I despised at the time, having no interest in Kansas' history, lol and this was one of the major topics covered. Eventually I came to identify a lot with the pioneer stories.

As Kansas would tell you casually, times were hard. There wasn't any money to spare; she kept the little she had in a shoebox tucked under her mattress. Food was often scarce, but she learned to fight the hunger pangs. A lot of people left, which hurt her, but she understood. The sun and stars always seemed to be obscured by a haze of dust, and she often found it hard to breathe for all the dust in her lungs. However, as with all things, she gritted her teeth and persevered. She never stopped to complain, and if she ever wondered why it was happening to her, she never expressed it aloud. Instead, she did what she needed to do to survive, further strengthening her resilient and independent mindset. She always says of that time, "if you wanted something to happen, you had to do it yourself. No one else was going to help you; everyone was just trying to survive, same as you. You didn't really think about anything else, just 'what must I do to feed myself and my family today?' And then you did that thing."