March 10, 2009

Waiting for Water

Last October, when I got these photos at what I call Camera Trap Spring, the pool of water was about the size of a typical bathroom sink.

I put the camera in the same spot on March 2nd. The pool was equivalent to my two cupped hands. When I retrieved the camera on March 6th, it was gone.

This mule deer doe and another came by later on the 2nd, and another photo caught her drinking. Now she will have to make a longer trip to the creek or maybe someone's stock pond.

Some people look at the Colorado snow pack as proving that a drought apocalypse has been postponed.

For those of us dependent on lower-elevation precipitation and for dryland farmers, things are not so good. These dry, windy days come one after another. I did awake this morning to snow -- about a millimeter of it -- and by late morning it was just a memory.

Fires keep popping up -- all caused by human idiocy, as far as I can tell.

It all feels like 2002, the year of no rain, the year the creek went dry, the year my stepmother spent in hospitals and nursing homes, with Dad getting more and depressed. They are both gone now, but this weather and waiting for water keep looping me back seven years.

No comments: