The Shy Goddess has come and gone after a 2+”, 6-day slow rain from the 2nd to the 7th https://drycrikjournal.com/journal-2022-23/, only to return Saturday with another inch, enough to push Dry Creek down canyon. Quite a welcome sight, water in the creek, sycamores afire and green; the way it ought to be!
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek flow, green feed, photography, rain, Ranch Journal, shy goddess, sycamores
The past two dry years have been tough on the Great Blue Herons here, resorting to year-round rodent hunting to sustain themselves. With a measureable flow for only 18 days this year, absorbed before it made it to the Kaweah River, Dry Creek peaked at 9 cfs on April 3rd, compared to the 2010-11 season when Dry Creek ran until September 4, 2011. It’s too late for the chance of showers (and thunderstorms) today and tonight to help our feed or the herons much other than settle the dust and temporarily change the smell of things with only 5.67” of rain since October 2013. Those are the numbers, but one look at our April feed conditions says it all.
An image branded in my brain during the devastating Drought of 1977 is that of a Great Blue Heron fishing from the concrete bank of the Friant-Kern Canal near Exeter that gave me hope, that demonstrated their adaptability to me. No wonder they have become our totems—now if we can just take their lead.
Posted in Photographs
Tagged adaptability, Drought, Dry Creek flow, Friant-Kern Canal, Great Blue Heron, Kaweah River, photographs, water, weather
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