Yesterday evening, two Mourning Doves sat on the power lines in the shade of a Chinese Tallow tree. They gazed to the east, beaks into the wind, watching a black sky advance. Waiting for some rain.
“I don’t know,” Trudy said to me from the dining room table. “It could still get here.”
The radar showed the storm fizzling. The yellow, orange and red was dissipating, leaving only fickle green dancing on my laptop monitor.
Yet the fair and industrious Trudy and the doves on the line held out hope.
I went outside and sat on the bench gazing west and watched the clouds passing overhead literally evaporate. Although behind me blackness remained, before me the setting sun blazed in golden glory against a blue sky. No rain came. Not even the smell of rain in the air blowing out of the east. Nothing.
Today, it got up to 105 and burnt our toasted yard and former garden further to a crisp. The doves sat in the sun on the power lines with their backs to the east, watching us on the patio. Ben was cooking chicken on the grill. I walked around with a hose, trying to keep the few things still alive from falling to the ground.
But not much remains.
The chard is gone. The tomatoes are gone. The cucumbers are gone. One of the squash plants is gone. Last week, Trudy gave up on them all, announcing with resignation that our efforts to keep them on life support were just a waste of water. There’s a good month and a half of this heat ahead of us, still, so what’s the point?
And the rest of the yard is turning to powder.
The Thyme Juniper is dead. The Wright’s Skullcap is dead. The Blue Flax is dead. The hardy Wild Sunflowers are dead or dying, although at least they leave some seed heads for the Goldfinches. The Golden Eyes are drying to a crisp, leaving half their hardy leaves drooping in the heat. Even the water-hating Wolly Stemodia is barely alive.
This is a place only the committed can love.