Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

The  reality of  the  drought is becoming oppressive
July 17, 2011

Only to the mindless sunbather is the weather perfect. This year even the suburban gardener is beginning to feel the fear. When will it rain?

In a localized drought there is a touch of religious guilt, especially for the people making a living from the soil. "Why us? Why me? What have we done wrong?" With personal loss or failure the tension can snap people. 70 years ago in the Dust Bowl many people were broken. Many Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma towns emptied and their people traveled the roads without goals or hope, and are now remembered as Okies. The trauma of losing everything can become an unnamable fear that erodes the soul. For them it becames a monster, an evil too large to comprehend. It only oppresses.

Life still goes on, to some degree. Out in the rural areas, baby cactus wrens and house finches (lucky enough to be born in the yard) are underfoot. Wildlife comes to the ranchhouse and farmhouse, the only source of water for miles. At Sibley the cactus wrens are picking at bugs in near the windows, ignoring me on the inside. They chortle and giggle to themselves, half-heartedly attempting adult sounds. When they learn the adult song and can perform it sotto voce (under the breath), they scare easier. The distance their song can be heard becomes the closest I can come.

The dialogue of the quail makes no sense. One pair visits the building, but no young have been produced. It is more than just territorial proclamations. There are too many different tones and frequency patterns. The dialogue fluctuates with the weather. When a cloud goes over they are silent, then speak again with the sun. Whirlwinds are roundly cursed during their passage. However, the Curve-billed Thrasher is easy to understand. All bullies brag and he's no exception.

I'm glad to see the broomweed die and wish more of it would go, and for that, wish the drought to continue. Wishing the drought to continue is sacrilegious (God punishes for wishing evil). But it is good for the broomweed to go. It means grass and wildflowers will be thicker and lusher the next wet year - whenever that will be. Ranchers and hunters have told us that the juniper (cedar) is dying in the hill country and the Stockton Plateau -- and jokingly say "at least there is one benefit to the drought," before telling about the deer with every rib painfully delineated.

Along the highways there are almost no annual wildflowers. A few hardy perennials do bloom, seemingly brighter and braver than usual, blooming strongly, usually in barditches. Their aroma is overpowering, for there is no other smell except dust.

The pond and several other watering spots may be responsible for our daily bird population increasing in the number of species. Painted buntings and canyon towhees visit the wildlife garden often during the day. At the feeders house finches are domesticated. Ten at once debate the finer points of sunflower gastronomy while ignoring passersby. At the pond, scissortails, kingbirds, ash-throated flycatchers are often getting a drink, along with barn and cliff swallows, and nighthawks in the evening. The scissortails, swallows, and nighthawks and kingbirds drink on the wing while the ash-throats sit on the edge to drink. Dozens of doves spend hours in the playa near the water, eating old tumbleweed seeds. A green heron is a regular. The redwing blackbirds and grackles spend the night in the golf course pond.

What will be the long term ecological effects of the drought? There are too many considerations for the mind to comprehend. There is no computer large enough to store the data needed, much less analyze it and cross-reference it. For every action there is a reaction. There is nothing set and permanent in nature. Nature is fluid, ever-changing, with the complexity of sunlight shimmering off agitated water.

After a time, the mind registers the drought as being permanent. The sun seems too hot, the wind too searing, the nights too stuffy. Heat rashes, bug bites and thorn wounds are all too common. This drought has brought a scare-- that this drought will be like droughts of legend, historical droughts that brought vast changes to the people suffering their awful power.