Blue Monday: Springtime Blues

Blue Monday is hosted weekly by Smiling Sally.
To see more offerings, or to participate yourself, please head on over to her blog.

Well, it seems to be springtime around here!  We're still having some cold spells, and a few cloudy days, but also lots of stuff blooming.  It's happening even sooner than I expected.  And I LOVE that.  Just look at that beautiful clear blue sky.

Also love the yellow flowers. Forsythia? Japonica?

But even though I love the gorgeous weather, I know the drought here in Central Texas is wreaking all kinds of havoc -- and we probably haven't seen all the effects yet.  And around the Hill Country it's very hard to ignore.  These are a couple of shots I took this weekend when we were out looking at Lake Travis.

Lake Travis from around the Point Venture area.

In ordinary times, most all that sandy beach area would be covered with blue water.  The lake is down almost fifty feet below normal levels, and not likely to come back anytime soon.

Looks like a construction site, but it's just "beach"!

It's still a great recreation area and wildlife habitat, but if the dry spell goes on much longer, water rationing is a real possibility.  Not looking forward to that.  Also, you can see how it's causing a lot of heartache for all those home owners with lakefront property.  If you enlarge the photos, you can see all the steps going down the hillside -- in better days, they would have ended at the waterline!