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Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Two Sides to the Rain

Yesterday it rained all day, and today does not look to be very different. While flooding has occurred in the nearest large metropolis, on my property the most that has happened is that the ditch running alongside my internal road has turned into a peaceful babbling brook.


For Bow, however, all this rain has led to a certain amount of boredom. He enjoys going outside every day, but when it is raining, even very slightly, he will not venture out.


You can lead a chimpanzee to water, but you cannot make him cross the threshold.


There he sits, with a bemused expression, seeing the rain fall, but refusing to budge.


Set him free! the heckling animal rights people often say, when  they post comments on my videos. But where would he go? How would he find shelter from the rain?


The rain is good for the flowers and the trees, By extension, this is good for the butterflies and the bees.


But none of them seem to like it when it actually rains. If they had direct control over the weather, it might never rain, they dislike it that much. You don't see them outside when it rains.

I regret that I did not excavate the perimeter of my pasture this year, because this would be a good year to fill the moat that would create Bow's island. Other years there will be much less rainfall. We have experienced droughts before. We will have droughts again. Variability is built into the weather. People find reasons to complain, no matter what the weather brings.

The question is: Once he has that island of his own, how will Bow keep from ever getting wet?


4 comments:

  1. I would not mind some rain, but our rain is just too sporadic. I think the lack of rain in California is here to stay.

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    1. Hi, Julia. I am not sure if there has been climate change in California or it was always a bit arid. I know, for instance, that in the small community of Pearblossom, all the wells have gone dry, and they have to ship water in. The place is named for the pear farms that used to be there, but now they have been abandoned and have "returned to the desert landscape", according to the Wikipedia. This kind of implies that that area started out as a desert before people decided to farm there, using unnatural methods of irrigation. If that is so, then this is really not a natural catastrophe so much as a failure to change the climate to what the settlers wanted it to be.

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  2. Aya, does he just not like being wet? Cold? Both? Is it his tropical DNA that doesn't like getting cold?

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    Replies
    1. I don't know for sure. I know he does not like immersion in water for fear of drowning, but the idea that just a little wetness is to be avoided -- I don't know where that came from.

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