pond about to dry up

The stocktank ("farm pond," for furriners) is MUCH smaller than it was a week or so ago. It is obviously down to where the bottom is almost level, so that I doubt it is more than a few inches deep. You can see the silt-flats a fraction of an inch underwater stretching out some feet from the margin.

If we fail to get enough rain to create some runoff, I think it will not last more than another week. And rain remains unlikely. There are 10% and 20% chances of thunderstorms listed in the weekend forecast, but the meteorologist's discussions indicates that he thinks he will be taking them out as the week progresses, if the models continue to run as he expects. West of us it may rain. To the north, in Oklahoma and the plains states, it is quite likely to. Here -- not so much.

I saw the heron circling over me, crying out a deep "cro-o-o-oak," but I was unable to catch a picture of it, only of tracks in the mud.





I attempted to stride across the end of the pond to get a measure, assuming that where the large cracks were was dry mud. Wrong.







The pond is surrounded by a pattern of deep fissures. The clay of this lower level of the bed is obviously extremely sensitive to drying, and begins to shrink, opening huge cracks, while still pretty soft.