'Spring' Cleaning....

Every year the Panaca Spring is drained for week.  It is usually around Spring Break, which means it isn't always warm, and it is usually always windy.  This year, it was GORGEOUS weather.  Which means a few hours each for a couple of days were spent catching frogs and fish and crawdads by my kids.  They enjoy this one week almost as much as they enjoy the swimming the rest of the year--maybe more because it only comes once and because it isn't always nice enough to play in it some years.  

Bryson looking for frogs for two straight hours.

The mud around some of the edges is GROSS and extremely deep, I didn't get pictures the next day, but Trevin had mud clear up his neck and onto his hair, his clothes were black, and it's a good thing he cleaned off or I might have left 'swamp thing' in the swamp.

My little princess looking for her prince? 

 Yep, pink and bejeweled, or mud-covered and frog-catching, she is my little princess.

Today was pretty quiet, there were a few other friends around, but the next day there were lots of people out and we came back after we finished branding cows to let cousin Deegan check it out.  Some people showed up to swim and were absolutely shocked to find it almost empty, once I explained to them that it was normal and temporary, they climbed on in and mentioned at one point that 'it is almost more fun this way!"

The Panaca Spring, looks almost like a river here, and all of that water is springing up from the ground within just a small area.  About 10 million gallons a day of water that averages a temperature of 78 degrees.  In the hot sun you think you'll be cooling off your feet by sticking them in there.  Nope, usually you just get a surprise that the water is about as warm as the air around you.  It also provides not only the town and those with water shares a great source of water, but most of the farmers through the valley have shares.  It is piped out of the spring in a couple of spots and the water and it's warmth travels through them, leaving stripes of green on the dirt above, or paths of thawed snow during the winter.  An oasis in the desert, it was once used as the towns water supply and no swimming was allowed, but that was when my grandparents were younger.  Now, it is the swimming hole for the town, along with many who come from out of town, or out of state to experience it.