I’ve always postulated that the only two groups that are always unhappy with the weather are farmers and firemen. Both think it’s too dry or too wet, and either the crop is a loss or the woods are ablaze …

Normally I’d have my lower lip pooched, regaling you with how I was all set to feed voracious brown-water cockroaches all manner of hideous and colorful flies, only the weather interrupted the festivities and I watch sullen as Chocolate Milk circled the drain where my beloved creek used to be …

Instead I’m all smiles.

Chocolate water means enough rain fell in the last two weekends to soak into the ground, with a bit left over to raise the creek nearly a foot.  A bit of extra water into the lake above means something to pizzle into the creekbed come August, when daytime temps break 100 degrees, and what fish are active compete with tomatoes for a hint of cold water.

This winter was a pale mockery of normal, and rather than watch my creek drained and dried for the second time in three years, I’d rather some life sustaining trickle was released from the reservoir above when it’s needed most.

I photographed this same stretch last year, where the foreground oak was underwater to its lower branches (see the Before and After pictures).