Out in nature at Wilder Ranch, one can also stay inside: the ranch has a fascinating series of pulleys that make power. It’s a type of Pelton wheel, and I’ve seen it demonstrated, by someone who explained how the water comes from springs underground, shoots up and turns the wheels that turn the pulleys that operate the drills and whatever else is hooked up. It’s remarkably loud, but it works, sending a drill bit up and down and making a hole in some wood that might be hard to make otherwise. It even grinds coffee--a lifesaver any morning, on the ranch or elsewhere.
In addition to water the ranch has trees, many kinds--mapped almost two decades ago, and probably different since. As California burns, we can wonder what kind of trees will keep growing in the future, what vegetation will pop up among the ashes, how we will phoenix into the future. Will the rivers that make power keep trees alive? When I run through Wilder Ranch I see only the empty ghosts of rivers, streams parched by lack of rain. Where will the water come from for us or the trees or the wheels? And then sometimes the water is too much, flooding parched or paved ground, overwhelming trees so they float, people so they, well, sadly, die.
Hard not to feel it apocalyptic.
So in the graves of beds at night, wonder what you should climb, what you should swim, where you should go. Turn out the lights a little bit early, drive a little bit less. Think again about the solar panels. Think again about Meatless Monday. Think again about where the water comes from and where the trees will go and how we’ll fight the fire without any of that--water. A cistern squatting in the yard, a way to collect rainwater. Will we drink it? Will we use it to fight?
