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a brief, welcome flood So, on Saturday, after checking the second lek of the morning, and waiting for the grouse to leave because there was nothing else left to do in the morning, I headed home on my flowers route. At the next junction, I stopped to take a picture of the benchmark there. Just because I haven't for a while. And cocked my head as I leaned down towards the half-century old marker. There was the strangest sound. Familiar, but really, really out of place. It actually took me a second or two to recognize it. Water. The sound of gurgling, rushing water. Out here, on a sagebrush bench, miles from any stream. But I quickly remembered. There are a couple dredged ditches out here on these flats. Made decades ago, long before there was any concern over environmental consequences, or protection of natural wetlands. Local homesteading ranchers had gouged a path for the water to flow down to their stock reservoirs, rather than spreading out and naturally irrigating the prairie. I've seen them with running water before. But it's been years. If not decades. But sure enough, just a hundred meters or so away was a rapidly running man-made brook. Water that wasn't there a week ago when I checked these leks. But now, after our blizzard last weekend that dumped an inch or two of moisture on the ground as 8 to 12 inches of snow, much of it still melting in the mountains, the water was flowing fast. I couldn't help but put my hand in it. Water as cold as it was clear. |
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