“Enchanted Light | New Mexico” by Jim Crotty is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
It’s quite a change from last spring when streams and rivers were running low and we were being warned of drought conditions. Now the map is almost all green, indicating “normal” conditions. A wet September — more than 25% over average precipitation — and an average October have allowed the ground to soak up some water and the rivers to return to more normal flows. That’s good or Droughtman might have had to tell us to carry our buckets down to the big lakes because they have lots of water. That’s his definition. If there’s water in the lakes, there’s no drought.
It has been a lovely couple of months. Such a nice change to be closer to normal temperatures and levels of precipitation after being hotter and drier for so long. The vegetation is loving it. Our lawns are almost uniformly green, and the grass that we’ve allowed to go natural also has a lot of green in it. Usually it is dry and golden and waving in the breeze. As an added bonus, the restricted irrigation schedule that we adopted earlier in the year has been more than adequate, saving both water and money while giving us a green lawn.
I could go for more of this. It’s nice to not have to worry about water.
rjb
