The lake is really going down because of the wind and hot weather. We are fortunate to have tanks that have springs in them so the cows will always have water. An interesting find though is when the water in the lake goes down you see land that is not very often seen. Some of it has grass in it that the cows have already found and some of it is just laying there soaking up the sun. Some of it appears to have a small (very small) cliff on the edge of it. Other land looks like a bay or an inlet.
At first when the water starts going down and the cows can cross the lake at the very end, the calves will test it first. Almost like a child sticking their toes in a swimming pool to find out the temperature of and how deep the water is. At this point the land is muddy and the calves come out with mud all over their legs. As soon as that portion of the lake dries, the calves run back and forth as if they have a new playground. After a while they don’t even bother to go through the Sweet Gum Grove to get to the other side. They know a short-cut now and use it constantly.
Back in 2011 when we had the big drought (hopefully this lack of rain is not going to outdo that one), the lake dried up all the way to just before the dam. But even though there was still water the length of the dam it was not very deep. For some reason, the cows and calves of the Red Oak Ranch left that pool of water alone; maybe they didn’t want the lake to go completely dry.
