At dawn two Sundays ago, I was drawn outside by the sound of tomcats fighting. My face caught the first few drops of rain. I felt blessed.
Within the hour, there was a downpour, then a few more through the afternoon and evening. We were getting the soaking we’ve needed all February, just in the knick of time.
This past weekend’s rain opened March just as sweetly, with snow in the mountains all the way down to the spine of Blue Ridge. The foothills’ sparse vegetation was revealed by the patches of exposed soil darkened with moisture appearing between the patches of green. The grasses and mustard, filaree and fiddleneck will all get a new lease on life in the next few days. The cattle and their keepers say thank you.
These two rainy weekends have been a sweet taste of hope in this foreboding year, potentially more disastrously dry than even last year. Fourth in a row: how many more can our small farmers take? How many orange groves and peach orchards will have to die so that Paramount can grow almonds on the westside, where there never is enough moisture, to export to China?
According to a letter sent by Lindsay-Strathmore Irrigation District to its landowners in late January, a water district in the State Water Project (serving water to lands south of Westlands Water District on its way to LA,) was offering to sell water to LSID at $1,300 per acre-foot. Landowners within LSID who wanted to reserve some of that water had to pay the entire amount up-front before Feb. 6th. If the water did not become available, their money would be returned; if the water was even more expensive, they would have to pay the balance before delivery.
For those of you who do not farm, those numbers won’t mean anything. But here’s something to compare it with: if the cost of gasoline increased from its current low of $3.00/gal. to $40.00/gal. in one year, could you afford to commute to your job? Would you consider moving, or look for a job closer to home? A farmer cannot pick up her farm and go where water is cheaper, cannot trade it in for a less water-intensive crop to grow overnight. What would you do?
It makes it clear just how much rain is like grace. This water came to us for free, fell on the just and the unjust alike. It was unearned. We did not, and could not, do anything to make it happen except hope and pray. It was pure blessing, even if it turned streets and parking lots muddy from the dirt washed off our roofs, even if it leaked through in a few places.
There is a need for us to come together, townspeople and countryside folks, to find ways to share the shortage of water. I don’t want to go through another summer watching sprinklers mindlessly keeping lawns green while orange groves die outside the city limits.
In the meantime, say thank you for the rain and the hope. Let us renew our efforts to learn to live in this place with its limitations as well as opportunities. Amen.
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Trudy Wischemann is a
writer who has been reading Anne Lamott and Lauren Winner this winter. You can send her your rainy day stories c/o
P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.
I'm glad to hear that some rain came. The drought has been brutal and has been the subject of world attention.
ReplyDeleteBrutal and bringing out the worst in some of us. That fact, though, is helping me launch another in-church effort at looking at the common good with respect to water shortages. Want to join? hugs, T.
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