Rain

The daffodils emerged early to find themselves drowning in rain and surround by frozen black succulents. 

Slowly and gradually over the last four years, OilMan has been planting drought tolerant plants on the hill and I have been filling pots with succulents.

Last year was predicted to be a 'strong El Niño'.Dire predictions abounded throughout the long dry summer. Summers here are always dry, but last year prompted by the dire predictions, people started looking at their oak trees and consulting arborists about drought weakened roots and dry brittle branches. Our neighbors across the street began fishing tree trunks and rocks out of the creek and shoring up the banks.

We had one big storm in January which did wonders for our garden but wasn't enough for the weather wonks to declare the drought over. The reservoirs were filling up but there were still mutterings about shrinking aquifers and riparian rights.

Then it stopped raining. We got used to it. Our beautiful summer weather extended into winter then spring and another summer. There was a heat wave in October. The governor resumed pushing his plan for some sort of fantastically expensive 'water  tunnels' to save the Sacramento Delta by shipping Sierra snowmelt into Southern California. This did not go over well with Northern Californians who were letting their lawns die while rich Hollywood types poured water onto their horse farms and polo fields. Los Angeles, after all, is a desert. Why would every house need to have a fountain in front of it?

This year, the rains came again in January and this time they have not stopped. Some of the storms come from Hawaii and dump 6 inches of rain at a time. Others come from Alaska and everything turns to ice. The reservoirs are all at capacity, the rivers and creeks are overflowing, the ground is saturated, intersections are flooded and and slides and fallen trees block other roads.There are not enough people to rescue the stranded, clear the mud and trees and restring the power lines, requiring a sort of triage. 

Many of us have formed the habit of ending our sentences with, "but I'm not complaining...we need the rain" like some kind of mantra.

But really...Los Angeles, take our water. WE DON'T NEED ANY MORE RAIN!