Some say in fire
Jul. 9th, 2012 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neverspentThe drought and heat are worse this year than last. My state is categorized as suffering from severe drought (and in some counties it's "extreme," which is apparently worse). The fire danger is also much worse. Last year I wasn't really worried, but with the grass withered and brown so much earlier in the summer, the shrubs and vines dying, and even the trees that are succumbing to the stress of two years drought, for the first time in my memory we are dealing with a lot of wildfires. Double the usual number of fires in June, and they burned four times the number of acres that burned last year. It's nothing like the scale of the fires out West, but there have been evacuations. I'm worried about the forest. Driving from farm to city, I pass patches of charred grass, the branches of the nearby trees brown and dead from the heat of the flames.
This weekend I went on a brief roadtrip one state to the north, and it's clear this situation is regional, not local. (In fact, at least where the heat is concerned, it's been a record-breaking year continent-wide.) After driving 600 miles, we came to an area where there were some tall weeds that looked a lot like grass, and they were GREEN. I was surprised at what a shock it was to see a green hillside after so many miles of brown. With the dark green trees dotting the yellow-brown fields and hills, it looks almost like California out there. We also saw one pasture that actually had green grass when everything around was dead, so clearly this one farmer had found a way to water his field.
Grasshoppers are abundant and are eating things they normally leave alone. We found piles of droppings on our front porch where they had a convention chomping on a schefflera. Other animals change their behavior to get access to water or food, including poisonous snakes like the large copperhead my dad killed right outside the back door. I've been afraid to go down and look at the pond, but I'll report on that eventually.
This weekend I went on a brief roadtrip one state to the north, and it's clear this situation is regional, not local. (In fact, at least where the heat is concerned, it's been a record-breaking year continent-wide.) After driving 600 miles, we came to an area where there were some tall weeds that looked a lot like grass, and they were GREEN. I was surprised at what a shock it was to see a green hillside after so many miles of brown. With the dark green trees dotting the yellow-brown fields and hills, it looks almost like California out there. We also saw one pasture that actually had green grass when everything around was dead, so clearly this one farmer had found a way to water his field.
Grasshoppers are abundant and are eating things they normally leave alone. We found piles of droppings on our front porch where they had a convention chomping on a schefflera. Other animals change their behavior to get access to water or food, including poisonous snakes like the large copperhead my dad killed right outside the back door. I've been afraid to go down and look at the pond, but I'll report on that eventually.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-10 06:01 am (UTC)Log
I have not heard anyone say we should be rationing water. I can remember one time when they wanted people to water their yards on even or odd days, but that's about it.
It is going to be very hot here for the next three days. This is our usual.
It's sad to see things lack for water.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-19 05:00 am (UTC)Our state was one of the many which were recently declared federal drought disaster areas. Every week there's more news about how it's the worst drought year for the country in 60 years or so. Yet there's flooding too. I know it's weird for our brains to be comparing these contrasting weather patterns, since I'm sure we evolved to deal with just the local in terms of weather. But here we are, and I'm always wishing we could share our extremes around! Send a little heat and sunshine to Britain, for instance, and I'm sure they'd happily give us some of their cool rain! They're feeling like they haven't had a summer at all, where I felt like we didn't have a winter.