Saturday, Jan. 01, 2005 10:26 P.M.

“How Green Is My Valley”

I took this photo yesterday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. This is a bench on the grounds, overlooking the hills around Simi Valley. The recent rains have made the hills as green as they normally would be, much later in the Spring.

If you live east of the Rockies, it is doubtful that you can fully comprehend what a good rainfall means to the western slopes of the continent.

Growing up in Kentucky, I had never been west of St. Louis until we moved to California. I was stunned on my first experience of traveling across the arid terrain past the prairies. I watched as it the high chaparral gave way to the mesas, bounded by range after range of shadowy mountains devoid of trees or vegetation. Their undulant repetition eventually drops into the great Mojave Basin. The Mojave encroaches upon the foot of the last mighty barrier sierra range, which descends into the coastal valleys. Only at that last assault upon nature’s sky-reaching boundaries, do you begin to find much vegetation.

This growth is not to be compared with any other on the planet. The world’s tallest and largest trees are found here. The Sequoia Gigantia. The world’s oldest trees are found here. The Birstlecone Pine, which grows far above other surrounding vegetation and seems to emerge from rocky crags in the thinnest of atmospheres.

Water comes to these areas, but it is in season only. The rest of the year the ground is bone-dry and as hard as concrete.

We are in that rainy season now. It began quite early this year, and seems likely to produce a fair amount of rainfall. This means there will be fewer wildfires. The water in lakes and streams should rise. It has been at drought levels.

After today, I may be a believer in God’s blessing on the New Year’s Day Rose Parade in Pasadena. All week we have enjoyed successive rainstorms, following the Jet Stream down from the northern Pacific. Only yesterday, as I was waking, a powerful storm cell moved through this town with the heaviest deluge I have experienced in years. The weather map shows storms lined up ready to move across the city from the northwest, not unlike the weather patterns approaching the Florida peninsula from the southeast, last summer.

Yesterday, a bright blue spot in the sky emerged from the dark, billowing clouds. The result was a day of traditional California sunshine. The clearing lasted through the night and made a proud setting for the Rose Parade. Then the skies closed up and became expectant with rain. It should start at any moment.

It has not rained on the Rose Parade in 51 years. Today we held our breaths.

Here in the southwest, we do not complain about the rain. We know it will be only too soon that it is gone again for another year.

Last Tuesday as we returned from the Las Vegas area and started the long drive home, I had a thought, which startled me.

Rainstorms had been predicted, and there was even a possibility of snow on the higher elevations. Just as we crossed the state line, large raindrops began to fall.

I looked absently out the side window as we crested the first mountain pass, elevation about 4,000 ft. The dull, bone colored hills rolled higher and higher beside the road. The soil was streaked with charcoal and taupe like a sand-art creation in a glass jar. Here and there dual tracks laid down from vehicle tires, zigzagged along the base of the hills, and then disappeared into an arroyo. It all looked dry, dusty and long forsaken. It appeared desperately thirsty. Small tufts of spiky brown desert plants were spotted across the landscape like hair transplants on a bald scalp. I had the feeling that I was looking at terrain, which had lain forgotten and devoid of moisture for a thousand years. Well, …months at least.

I saw the raindrops begin to blanket the ground, certainly stirring up some elements which had slumbered for eons (it seemed to me)…and then a strange thought rose up in my mind: “I wonder what the earth thinks…”

…after so long a drought
…sun beating down for months on end
…wind and heat sucking the last moisture from the grains of sand
…I wonder what the earth thinks
…when the juicy drops from heaven begin to fall?

Isn’t that a strange thought?

Guess I have driven across the desert too many times.

I am beginning to feel its emotions.

Do you think?

Thanks for reading!

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