Cynthia McClure

I’ve been doing a bit of walking this spring as part of my attempt to fully recover postpartum. I walk near the Colorado river, because that’s where I live and I have often enjoyed watching the wildlife change and shift each year.

This year the river is lower than ever and I want to talk about what we can do about it. There are plenty of articles that talk about how terrible the drought will be and how many industries and such will suffer. I want to talk about how this impacts us urban folk and what we can do about it.

For our family the first and most devastating thing is lower irrigation. My family is at the end of the ditch and the water flow not only started later than usual but it’s about a fifth of the flow we’ve gotten in previous years. It remains to be seen if this level of water will fluctuate throughout the year, go up later or disappear completely near the end of the season. Thankfully for us city folk we’ve still been able to run the sprinklers, they just turn off and on as needed.

The other big difference is that our local river access is…bleak. Last week the river was half the size of its usual width, though that has improved now. Hopefully it will continue to improve because the man-made tubing offshoot is still low.

So, what can we do about it? We can pray for lots of rain. I remember an august that was monsoon level of rain and it was wonderful. Let’s pray that we get lots and lots of water this spring and summer.

The other thing I want to say is that we can all be grateful. I’m grateful we have irrigation water at all this spring. I’m grateful I can still walk by the river and enjoy the wildlife. God will provide us with our every need, and I think they covers water.

Thanks for reading,

C.M

What have you been grateful for this spring?