![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
June 19: Dry season
Jun. 20th, 2010 12:23 amI was talking to a group of foreign students recently and asked them to tell me something they've found difficult about living to this new country. "The weather always changes," several of them said.
Well, of course it does, I thought, it's *weather*. I roll my eyes whenever I hear someone trot out the cliche "Don't like the weather in ________? Wait a few hours, it'll change." --Because they say it like their city/state/region is unique in having such changeable weather. Living as I always have in regions with four seasons, where winter is cold, summer is hot, and it can rain at any time -- including severe, damaging thunderstorms in any month of the year -- it's hard for me to remember that in some places, the seasons are "wet" and "dry" (or "dry" and "potentially less dry") and never the twain shall meet.
Of course, even here, we do have seasons that tend to have less rain. Mid summer to late fall is when we can expect it to become dusty and parched. I can clearly remember some exceptionally rainy Junes and Augusts, but I remember them because they're unusual. And so now, we've passed mid-June, and it is indeed becoming dry. Along one section of the little dirt road where I walk the dogs, there is a stream that cuts into the ground right along the edge of the woods. During winter and spring, it's almost constantly running, gurgling, about an inch deep in the shallow places and several inches where it forms pools. One of the dogs, a fluffy Chow mix, likes to walk in the water and take lapping drinks as she walks. It cools her off in the middle of our walk.
This evening when we walked, she walked along the stream bed and searched in vain for a drink, but all she found were occasional stretches of cracking mud. Finally we came to a spot where the stream had been especially deep, and there were about three inches of murky, stagnant water. The dog plunged in joyously, took a big drink, and then just plopped right down in the mud to wallow and rest, like any good warthog.
It's a time of year that's still rich with life, but the dominant plants and animals are those which thrive in tougher conditions: those that have deep roots and like dry, sandy soil, those that can find water and food in the less obvious places. For the rest of the flora and fauna, it's time to pull back and rest. We even have two agricultural growing seasons here, separated by mid- to late-summer, when vegetables just stop producing because of the stress of the heat.
Well, of course it does, I thought, it's *weather*. I roll my eyes whenever I hear someone trot out the cliche "Don't like the weather in ________? Wait a few hours, it'll change." --Because they say it like their city/state/region is unique in having such changeable weather. Living as I always have in regions with four seasons, where winter is cold, summer is hot, and it can rain at any time -- including severe, damaging thunderstorms in any month of the year -- it's hard for me to remember that in some places, the seasons are "wet" and "dry" (or "dry" and "potentially less dry") and never the twain shall meet.
Of course, even here, we do have seasons that tend to have less rain. Mid summer to late fall is when we can expect it to become dusty and parched. I can clearly remember some exceptionally rainy Junes and Augusts, but I remember them because they're unusual. And so now, we've passed mid-June, and it is indeed becoming dry. Along one section of the little dirt road where I walk the dogs, there is a stream that cuts into the ground right along the edge of the woods. During winter and spring, it's almost constantly running, gurgling, about an inch deep in the shallow places and several inches where it forms pools. One of the dogs, a fluffy Chow mix, likes to walk in the water and take lapping drinks as she walks. It cools her off in the middle of our walk.
This evening when we walked, she walked along the stream bed and searched in vain for a drink, but all she found were occasional stretches of cracking mud. Finally we came to a spot where the stream had been especially deep, and there were about three inches of murky, stagnant water. The dog plunged in joyously, took a big drink, and then just plopped right down in the mud to wallow and rest, like any good warthog.
It's a time of year that's still rich with life, but the dominant plants and animals are those which thrive in tougher conditions: those that have deep roots and like dry, sandy soil, those that can find water and food in the less obvious places. For the rest of the flora and fauna, it's time to pull back and rest. We even have two agricultural growing seasons here, separated by mid- to late-summer, when vegetables just stop producing because of the stress of the heat.
