Spring
It had been a mild winter.
There had been mild winters before but not like this. That is to say, in my 25 years of existence, I could remember times of drought. But even during those dryer years we still received some snow. Maybe most of it came toward the end of winter but eventually there were a few decent snowstorms. The mildest winters typically meant some water restrictions in late summer, but we always made it from winter to winter. To say we were going to have a dry, brown summer this year was an understatement. There had been exactly one night of snow back in November over the Thanksgiving weekend. It didn’t even accumulate enough to get the snow shovels out. And then nothing really. Maybe one or two days of rain here and there but nothing to really saturate the ground or top off our water supply.
Everyone waited all winter. Most enjoyed the warmer than normal weather. Some started worrying. And a few started doing some figuring.
That was me. I was doing some figuring. Let me make it clear, I am not in any shape or form a scientist. I’m just a girl that works at the grocery store and tries to work extra shifts so that I don’t have to move back home with my mom. So, no I definitely wasn’t doing any scientific kind of figuring. I was just observing and noticing and then drawing my own conclusions. My own conclusions led me to believe this was not a normal drought. Normally, we expected to bounce back eventually. If this year was dryer than usual next winter we could have a bit more snow. But this just didn’t feel all that normal to me.
At first, I tried to talk about what I was thinking with other people. I would tell them that I didn’t think we were going to just go on as normal after this. How I personally felt this was different.
The reaction I usually received when I shared my thoughts was this response in different forms: that I didn’t think things through very well.
“Of course we will bounce back,” my mom told me and waved her hand as if to clear my statement out of the air.
“We’ve had droughts before,” my cousin said. “We just need to ride this out and eventually we’ll be back on track.”
“Quit being so dramatic,” my brother said to me while saying it in a fairly dramatic tone.
“That’s just plum crazy talk,” my Uncle Smitty said. This one stung a little bit because my Uncle Smitty was known in the community as what you might consider eccentric. He never took walks out in the open for fear of an alien abduction. Not to mention he often shared his theory that the President of the United States had his phone number and if he got into too big of a bind, the first person he would call is Uncle Smitty. So, when Uncle Smitty thought my theory was crazy, I stopped telling it to anyone.
But I’m telling you, there was a different feeling about this mild winter and I felt more than I knew that something was coming. All my figuring couldn’t prove it though.
Then, as if to confirm my thoughts, I saw it. The first day of spring, the lilac trees had green buds on them. The very first day of spring.
If you are not from these parts, you may be thinking that is no big deal. But in this part of the globe, it’s a very big deal.
We are situated about 7,000 feet above sea level in the Rocky Mountains. We never see any signs of spring on the first day of spring. In fact, the seasons are mere fairytales here. Winter we know well. Spring? We may get a day of spring in mid-June right before summer. There really is not a growing spring season here. We have a very long winter before sliding right into a short albeit perfect summer season. That’s just how it works.
So, when I saw little buds of green on the first day of spring – the first day – it seemed to confirm my thoughts. Something is coming. Something was about to change. It confirmed it to me but no one else in my small circle believed me. This was not our normal drought.
“We are in another drought,” said the news.
Granted we were in the mountains but the high mountain desert. And a desert is a desert. The strange thing was, areas south of us seemed to be getting our winter. The southern states that local residents flocked to during the winter to escape the cold and snow were getting hit with cooler temperatures, rain, and even some snow. Places that had never seen snow once were getting feet of snow overnight. Other areas were just flooding. This ruined crops and farmers’ fields. Grocery prices started to rise. Since we live in a fairly remote areas and all of our goods were trucked in, our grocery prices spiked. And being in the middle of a drought in a desert, our attention turned collectively to our water supply.
Our water supply came from a mountain spring less than an hour away. But about 40 years ago, before the omnipresence social media tattletales, a group of county commissioners made a deal with another state. That state would get first pick of our water and our community would basically get the second share. For 40 years the plan worked because eventually we received enough snow to share with everyone. Sometimes it didn’t come until right before spring but it always came. And sometimes we had restrictions to make sure everyone got what they needed.
It was rumored that one particular commissioner, Rocky Hudson, had benefited from the deal personally. Whether it was from this deal or shrewd investments like he claimed, he managed to buy half the town’s property and land. Just about anyone who bought property in town had to buy it from him. But he also still owned quite a bit of property that he rented out.
It wasn’t until this last winter that the community really started looking at Rocky Hudson and revisiting the deal from 40 years ago. The local news outlets questioned the 40-year-old transaction. Most of the townsfolk started to turn on Rocky who at 75 years old, still seemed tough enough to fight every single person who challenged him. Physically and verbally.
While I let the pitchfork crowd go after Rocky, I felt there was a bigger issue at play. When I saw those green buds on the first day of spring my stomach dropped. Normally, it was a happy day when I finally saw the first signs of spring – typically in May – but not this spring.
It didn’t help that I felt pretty much alone with my thought process.
Turns out, I wasn’t as alone as I thought.
I was at the library that first week of spring, on a weekday afternoon when I should have been at work. I called in sick because my mind couldn’t calm down. I just kept playing worse case scenarios in my head. Each scenario raced through my head on a never-ending loop until another equally obtrusive scenario took its place. I couldn’t make the thoughts stop and I couldn’t concentrate. In an effort to calm my racing thoughts, I headed to the library to get some kind of rom-com fluff novel to read. That usually did the trick to quiet my thoughts. As I walked in, I noticed there was a guest speaker sharing a presentation. I peeked my head into the small room when I heard him talking about the seasons and I couldn’t help but listen. He claimed we were heading into a time of new seasons and it would be in everyone’s best interest to prepare because the transition wasn’t going to be easy.
Only a handful of people were in attendance. A few of them looked like they might have been homeless and just wanted a place to sit indoors for a while.
I listened to him and the more he spoke, the more I felt like he would understand my feelings. Not only understand but be able to explain them better than I could. He used a bunch of words I had never heard of before and showed graphs. The gist of his message was this was not a typical drought with which I agreed with and I wished someone I had tried to explain this to was nearby. Any one of them would have sufficed. Except maybe Uncle Smitty.
The presenter also said he had started to prepare for whatever was coming by digging his own well. That was something I hadn’t thought of before. A few audience members heckled him for that. One or two nodded their heads in agreement.
If he noticed the mocking tone from the hecklers, he didn’t let on. Instead, he calmly explained how he had dug his well right in his back yard.
It didn’t take much to convince me. I thought a well sounded like a good idea. But judging from the hecklers’ reaction, I also thought maybe a covert well would be a better idea. I didn’t like the idea of being mocked any more than I already was by my own family.
After his presentation, I made my way to him. Once he determined my sincerity, he excitedly introduced himself. “Stuart Gibson,” he said and extended his hand. He earnestly wanted to help people so he told me again this time in detail how he had dug his well. I think he was so happy to find someone interested that he loaded me with brochures and how-to manuals that he had found or written. He told me about how far down I’d probably need to dig and what to look out for. The hecklers hadn’t left to find something else to do instead they stood nearby and continued to mock him and me. Which made me think of my family’s reactions. I became resolute in my decision. There was no way I was going to let them know my plan.
Turns out, thinking about digging a well gave my mind enough focus. I didn’t need to check out a book. I needed to get busy with this plan. I had to figure out how to build a covert well. As I walked out with everything he had given me to read, I determined I was not going to dig a well in my backyard like he did. No, sir. I was going to dig it somewhere hidden. I didn’t tell Stuart I was going to hide my well so in his stack of helpful tips, I didn’t have anything about keeping a project such as this hidden. I’d have to figure out that obstacle on my own. But I let him talk about all his findings and his data. I didn’t understand most of it but it didn’t matter. I understood all that I needed to and that was I needed to do something to prepare for whatever was coming our way. This was the proof I needed that I was right.
The girl who barely passed crafts class in school was about to figure out how to build a covert well without asking one soul for advice.
ck's days 