Like many old Great Plains homesteads, the main dwelling here slowly decays away, a relic of a time when opportunity and promise of the good times and wetter years hit the harsh reality of dry-land agriculture in this drought-prone, windswept, volcano-studded corner of New Mexico. In the distance, Palo Blanco Mountain and adjoining highlands stand watch. Storms like this, and the cold winter winds, contribute to the slow erosion of the adobe, which will crumble into a nondescript mound of earth within some indeterminate span of decades. Instead of near-instant weather damage, as if from a tornado, this takes more than most lifetimes to complete. The multicell cumulonimbus in the background erupted under an anvil shield from earlier, weaker storms, ultimately merging with another cluster that would form along its own outflow near Roy. The combined complex of thunderstorms rolled over a wonderful Tucumcari-area sunset and well southward into the night.
4 SSW Capulin NM (11 Jul 19) Looking SSW
36.6844, -104.0083Fate of the Old Homestead
Like many old Great Plains homesteads, the main dwelling here slowly decays away, a relic of a time when opportunity and promise of the good times and wetter years hit the harsh reality of dry-land agriculture in this drought-prone, windswept, volcano-studded corner of New Mexico. In the distance, Palo Blanco Mountain and adjoining highlands stand watch. Storms like this, and the cold winter winds, contribute to the slow erosion of the adobe, which will crumble into a nondescript mound of earth within some indeterminate span of decades. Instead of near-instant weather damage, as if from a tornado, this takes more than most lifetimes to complete. The multicell cumulonimbus in the background erupted under an anvil shield from earlier, weaker storms, ultimately merging with another cluster that would form along its own outflow near Roy. The combined complex of thunderstorms rolled over a wonderful Tucumcari-area sunset and well southward into the night.
4 SSW Capulin NM (11 Jul 19) Looking SSW
36.6844, -104.0083