The Hills Are Dry

Coming home to the Bay Area for winter break during college was like stepping from Kansas to Oz. No more black and white of New England winters, or, far worse, dull brown if the snow hadn't yet arrived. Just lush, green hills, buds on the valley oaks biding their time in the wind and rain, muddy trails, and the start of the vernal pools.

This year, all is brown. It's unsettling. The oaks are bare, but their brown silhouettes blend into the sunburnt backdrop that is the hills. It's not how it should be. We aren't like other parts of the country here, not in summer nor in winter. This is supposed to be our time of regeneration. 

I spent time in the Bay Area as a child during the drought of the late eighties, and I know what to do if it's yellow and what to do if it's brown. I'm expecting that this will come back into vogue. I'm expecting a devastating fire season. I'm expecting water rationing and municipal squabbling over what little run off we get this summer.

But on the way back from Sacramento, we spotted something out the car window that at least gives me hope for my favorite, drought-tolerant trees: underneath those valley oaks, Quercus lobata, within the radius of where their bent, spread branches nearly reach the ground, the grass is green. Little green circles, slight, but there, protected and shaded and fed by the moisture the tree can spare. The hills are dry, but the trees are alive.