Life By the Drop: Between Hell and Texas

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Photo by Wyman Meinzer/Texas Monthly permalink

“The drought was abysmal,” Meinzer says. “I felt it was my duty to document it in all of its ugliness.”

Photo by Wyman Meinzer/Texas Monthly permalink

On the 6666 Ranch, in King County, earthmoving equipment is used to clean out dry stock tanks in anticipation of potential rain.

Photo by Wyman Meinzer/Texas Monthly permalink

With stock tanks at historic lows, cattle, such as this steer on the Patterson Ranch, in Knox County, are driven by desperation to wade into the quagmire that surrounds each remaining water source, where they become stuck.

Photo by Wyman Meinzer/Texas Monthly permalink

On the Patterson Ranch, a cow, paralyzed after a prolonged struggle to free itself from the mud, is about to be dispatched by Kynn Patterson.

Photo by Wyman Meinzer/Texas Monthly permalink

Rancher Kynn Patterson and his partner, Pate Meinzer (Wyman’s son), use an old mixer to produce their own cattle feed in order to avoid the high feed prices brought on by the drought.

Photo by Wyman Meinzer/Texas Monthly permalink

The bacteria Chromatiaceae, which grows in oxygen-deprived water, turns Croton Creek, a tributary of the Brazos, eerily red during the 2011 drought.

Photo by Wyman Meinzer/Texas Monthly permalink

Heel dust marks the path of cattle leaving a man-made water source on the Williamson Ranch, in Knox County.

Photo by Wyman Meinzer/Texas Monthly permalink

A parched Brazos River wends its way through Knox County.

Photo by Wyman Meinzer/Texas Monthly permalink

A coyote and a young whitetail, usually adversaries, eye each other cautiously near a dwindling water source in Baylor County.

Photo by Wyman Meinzer/Texas Monthly permalink

The carcasses of two Hereford cows that perished on the Patterson Ranch.

Last year, Wyman Meinzer got an unsettling feeling. Meinzer was raised on a ranch in West Texas and has weathered many dry spells, including the drought of record, when he was just a boy. But last spring, he started to notice unusual patterns. High winds for days on end. Temperatures much hotter than normal. Waterholes shrinking and filming over.

Meinzer is the official state photographer of Texas. He’s known for capturing images that show the state’s beauty. But as the drought set in, he decided to document it in all its ugliness.

• Listen to the StoryLife By the Drop: Between Hell and TexasDownload

You can listen to Meinzer’s story and see some of his images in the slideshow above. And you can read Meinzer’s story in the new Texas Monthly.

This report is part of the series Life By the Drop: Drought, Water and the Future of Texas, a collaboration with KUT News and Texas Monthly and StateImpact Texas. You can listen to a special one-hour audio report from the series here at StateImpact Texas. And you can learn more about the history of the drought at our interactive web page, Dried Out: Confronting the Texas Drought, and share your thoughts on Twitter with the hashtag #txwater.