It finally rained last night. This was the first rain to fall on my garden in at least a month. Let me tell you, hearing that rainfall on my roof was some sweet, sweet music. And this morning I awoke to the most wonderful present: four full rainbarrels!
This drought has been something else. Last week while driving around town I rounded a turn and for a fleeting moment thought I was on a canyon road in Los Angeles. Something about the brown scrubby vegetation and the smell of the air made me think I was back in my hometown. And I thought: damn. I’ve been talking about moving back to L.A. for so long, I conjured it up in Nashville! Just give of us a beach and take the Baptists and it’s done.
We broke more heat records this week — seven heat records broken since June 28. Anyone who is still pretending this is “cyclical” needs to reacquaint themselves with the definition of a circle. When you’re breaking a new heat record every day — some over 100 years old — you don’t get a circle. You get a line pointing straight up. Just sayin’, people.
Middle Tennessee had a severe drought two years ago, and another one three years before that. I remember reading that the farmers outside of Nashville were forced to truck hay in for their livestock from places like Iowa. But with 75% of the country now in drought, I don’t know where they’d go for that hay these days.
Most deniers I know are now saying, “well, maybe it is climate change, but it’s too late to do anything about it, anyway.” Oh, well now you tell us. Thanks a lot, assholes. They are probably correct on this front but still: thanks for reminding us how y’all have been wrong about everything important and why we shouldn’t listen to you in the future. Also, we all know as soon as there’s a snowfall they’re all gonna be like, “Al Gore is fat, nyah nyah,” so I just don’t waste my time with these idiots. Crawl back under your holes with your friends the Birthers.
Last night’s rain probably saved my garden. We were in triage mode, trying to save big stuff like trees and giving up on the rest. Most of the hostas got scorched weeks ago and just need to be cut back. As I said in an earlier post, I long ago gave up on annuals like impatiens and have planted drought-tolerant species like lantana and yarrow, which offer a nice pop of color and have brought the hummingbirds to the yard. Speaking of hummingbirds, I’m guessing the drought has killed off a big portion of their nectar supply so I’m going to be extra diligent about keeping the feeders fresh.
We’re supposed to get more rain this week, which is a blessing. The temperatures have dropped, too. It’s a small dose of normalcy in a summer which has been anything but.