It Never Rains in Southern California

I have the great fortune to be spending some time in Palm Springs right now. And it's true, when you are here in the desert it does feel as if it never rains in Southern California as Albert Hammond tried to tell us. Although he did go on to sing that it "pours, man, it pours". And so it does some years. It has been a rainy and snowy year for California and they are about to experience the flooding that comes with the snow melt but here on the desert side of the San Jacinto mountains it feels like another world. I have included a picture of the blue sky so that those remaining in Vancouver can have a reference point.

Before you get hating on me I will let you know that I did my time in Vancouver this year. I was there for it all, the month of snow, then more snow, the unending rain in March. This was the first winter in many that I did not get an opportunity to escape to somewhere warm and sunny, warm enough to be in a bathing suit for part of the day. So I had to scrape the mould from behind my ears as I boarded the plane for California and the greenish, algae-like tint is slowly leaving my skin the more time I spend in the sun here. I feel your pain.
I am a born and bred Wet Coaster. Lived all my life in BC, most of it in the lower mainland. I know rain. My parents were born and raised in the area, rain is mixed in with my blood. I am used to it. But this winter has tried the spirit and soul of even those of us born to the wet weather.

When climate change was first discussed it was all about the idea of global warming, we would be growing lemons and oranges in our back yards, no more skiing in the snow-less mountains. Palm trees would abound, why, Vancouver was to become the new Los Angeles as Los Angeles withered up and blew away or sank into the sea.  Now the buzzwords are global climate change. Ah, that is a bit different. That leaves things open to all kinds of interpretations, expect anything! Los Angeles and Southern California were deluged with moisture this winter as were we in the Vancouver area. And still are according to reports I'm getting from friends at home. There won't be any orange groves in Vancouver surviving the snow we saw or flourishing in the few hours of tepid sunshine this spring has had to offer. Even our native gardens didn't survive the weather we had. Lawns turned to mush and then froze. Thawed and got rained on again and are now mostly moss. Trees that were never meant to carry eight inches of wet heavy snow were snapping their branches off in desperation to be free of the weight. Hedges splayed outwards, long branches escaping their tidy boundaries, requiring amputation.  In my neighbourhood the city workers were still cleaning the fall leaves off the streets in February, leaves that had been caught under the snow and ice and could finally be swept away.

Easterners laugh at our bitching and moaning and tell stories of snow so high they have to shovel out of their front door in the morning. That is precisely why I don't live in eastern Canada, or central
Canada, or northern Canada. I live as far south and almost as far west as I can get to escape Canadian weather. If Canada, instead of the U.S. had managed to strike a deal with Hawaii, or we had annexed  the Turks and Caicos like it had been discussed in 1974 then I would be living in one of those two places right now, I'm betting. I went to Hawaii for the first time at the age of eighteen and fell in love. Not with a person but with the islands. I had no idea such a paradise existed so close to home and so accesssible and I  tried to figure out how as a teenager with few skills I could wrangle a green card and stay there. It was not to be. But if I had had the Turks and Caicos to go to at eighteen....

  Don't you want to be here right now?

Courtesy of Turks and Caicos Tourism

Americans really have the choice to live in any kind of weather they want while staying in America. The U.S. has it all covered, weatherwise. Dry, wet, cold, steamy, arid, scorchingly hot. I envy them that.  The plan to make the Turks and Caicos our eleventh province was floated around again in 2013 and I'm hoping one day the Queen will give it up to us Canadians. Let us have our version of Puerto Rico or Hawaii, a tropical  dream with Canadian currency, the English language, a Caribbean flair,  and lots of room for our damp and chilled populace to to flake out on the beaches. It would be nice if it happened before global climate change melts the glaciers, raises the sea levels and sinks the Turks and Caicos. Fingers crossed.

Vanishing Oasis

The rocky, scrub covered mountains rise almost from the centre of town and turn shades of purple and tan as the sun lowers behind them.  They act as a wall between Palm Springs and all things west of it, the desert, the freeways, Los Angeles, the ocean. The town itself is flat, flat, flat with extraordinarily tall, thin palm trees that sway in the afternoon wind like drunk super models, throwing no shade. These palms and many others that have been planted, along with the thriving bougainvillea, oleander, fruit trees and flowers are courtesy of the huge aquifers that sit under Palm Springs. Those aquifers are in danger now from the prolonged drought in California that is Mother Nature's way of reminding California of its roots....desert roots. 

I have been visiting Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley for almost thirty-three years, my first visit being on my honeymoon. It is an almost too pretty place, coloured with deeply green lawns, gardens filled with flowers, blooming vines tumbling over white painted walls. And lots of trees... citrus trees, palms of all shape and size, eucalyptus and palo verde, and even some pines. The colourful lushness of Palm Springs always made me prefer it over Scottsdale, Arizona, another spot I visited frequently, even though they had almost identical climates. The difference, of course, is all that water that the Coachella Valley was sitting on. It filled swimming pools, fed decorative waterfalls, was sprinkled on golf courses and generally made you believe you were in an oasis in the desert. You were, in fact. 

But that's all over now. California's long and persistent drought has reached into the heart of Palm Springs and is ripping out its manicured emerald lawns and replacing them with sand and gravel. I spent quite a bit of time in Palm springs this last winter and I was so dismayed to see house after house sporting gravel front yards with a few tiny desert plants dotted about. Some didn't even bother with that. Large established trees were being sawed down, replaced by small cacti.

 Many yards that had gone through lawn replacement last year were now sporting patches of grass growing through the gravel making them look unkempt and down at the heels, like old men who are past caring about their appearance, proving that even in the desert grass is hard to kill.

I know, I know, it's a necessity. The governor of California has asked residents to voluntarily cut back their water consumption and the population has responded, thanks in part to the turf buy-back program the government offered. So I get it but it doesn't mean I like it. Palm Springs is looking more and more like Scottsdale, all shades of tan and grey, baking in the sun with less and less trees. it's a strong reminder of climate change and our dependence on water. 

On one of my recent visits to Palm Springs I went into a garden centre downtown and spoke with a woman working there about the situation. She said they were booked up for months ahead with lawn replacement jobs and yet even though she benefited from the work she didn't feel it was necessarily the right answer. The lawns do not require as much water as people think and they have a cooling effect as well as contributing to an ecosystem for the bugs and the birds. But that is an artificial ecosystem and one California can longer support. Being just a visitor it is not for me to pass judgement on what the citizens do.
Through all this the mountains stand guard, unaffected by the drought, the disappearing green lawns and flowers of the desert below just a passing dream of the humans that tended them. The desert has been there all along, waiting for a comeback.