The extreme heat continues to plague the Pacific Northwest causing record drought conditions. Wildfires are igniting and spreading quickly. We are in our third month of no measurable rainfall. The trees around my home look stressed and the tall grasses have already turned yellow brown. Usually, this time of year everything should be an emerald-green color.
We’ve taken to turning on a sprinkler every evening to prevent the land from turning into a dust bowl. Yesterday, around dusk, I went outside to turn off the water and noticed a mama deer with her fawn munching on some of the newly watered grasses. They didn’t run away but kept eating, the mama watching me ever so carefully as her newborn suckled. No sooner had I sat down on my back deck, thinking to watch the deer for a few minutes longer, when a snowshoe hare hopped out of the woods and made a beeline for the wet grassy places; then, two gray squirrels and a small flock of flycatchers. All wanting a drop or two or three of something that I think is becoming more and more precious. Water.
As a young woman hiking trails in our National Parks, I never thought twice of drinking water from a stream in the lush backcountry. If someone would have told me then that fresh waters would become polluted and I would have to either carry or filter my water whenever I hiked, I would not have believed them.
Now, I read about how once filled lakes and streams and aquifers are drying up; even climate predictions of how water will become the world’s number one greatest commodity.
I don’t think I can take the clean, clear water coming from out of our well for granted anymore; or when it rains or when I take a long drink of fresh cool water right out of the kitchen faucet. Maybe, water, once a small thing, is now a great thing.
How did you find solace this week?
Sharon
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