Lines and Swirls by myrrhluz
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Description
I used the paintbrush filter on this to bring out the swirls especially the green on green, which can be seen better on zoom.
Farming and ranching are very important industries in Texas. One of my favorite pastimes, when the weather is agreeable, is to take off and explore the back roads around San Antonio. Farmland stretches for miles, back roads have frequent cattle grids and warnings that livestock is roaming freely. I looked up Texas agriculture and found some interesting facts. I never knew that each state in the US had its own state soil, 20 of which (according to the US Dept of Agriculture website) have been "legislatively established" and "share the same level of distinction as official state flowers and birds." The state soil of Texas is Houston Black Clay, which (again according to the USDA):
"occurs on about 1.5 million acres in
the Blackland Prairie, which extends from north of Dallas south
to San Antonio. Because of their highly expansive clays,
Houston Black soils are recognized throughout the world as the
classic Vertisols, which shrink and swell markedly with changes in
moisture content. These soils formed under prairie vegetation and
in calcareous clays and marls. Water enters the soils rapidly when
they are dry and cracked and very slowly when they are moist....They also occur in
several metropolitan areas, where their very high shrink-swell
potential commonly is a limitation affecting building site development"
For those interested in agriculture, (those totally uninterested, feel free to disregard) here are a few more facts about Texas (taken from www.agclassroom.org/kids/stats/texas.pdf):
Number of Farms: 247,500
Average Farm Size: 527 acres
Total Farmland: 130 million acres
Texas enjoys a long growing season with planting beginning in February in the southern part of
the state; April and May in the north.
Texas diverse weather is due to the vast amount of land and two air masses that meet, Rocky
Mountain, Canadian cold air mass and the Gulf of Mexico's warm, moist air.
Texas has approximately 1,100 different soils within its borders.
Cotton, one of Texas top 10 commodities, was growing wild in the 16th century. Cotton is now a
major cash crop of Texas. Texas ranks first in the U.S. for cotton production.
There were 4,474,000 bales of cotton produced in 2008.
Texas was the leading state in cattle operations and cattle & calves for 2008. There were 149,000
cattle operations and a total of 13,800,000 head of cattle/ calves.
There were 960,000 sheep and lambs in Texas in the year 2008. They produced 4.2 million
pounds of wool, which put Texas first in wool production.
