Yesterday (Sunday), Debbie and I took a drive through our local mountains – a drive that turned out to be full of surprises. Most of the surprises involved water. We knew, of course, that we've had good rainfall this year – and normally, the mountains get even more rainfall than we do. But the difference between how the Cuyamaca Lake area looked two weeks ago and how it looks now is simply stunning. The lake itself has expanded so that its northern and eastern extents nearly meet the Sunrise Highway. We haven't seen this for years and years. My guess is that it's just 4 to 6 feet below the spillway.
Furthermore, everywhere we went (which included the entire length of Boulder Creek Road), we saw every stream running, most ponds full or nearly full, and standing water in places that we don't remember ever seeing standing water before. We could be in for a beautiful wildflower season this year, even if we don't get any more rain – and we're almost certain to get more!
This evening, in the dwindling light as I write this, our hummingbird feeders are chock-full-of-hummers – about 20 in all right now. It won't be long now until we are back to our 20+ pounds of sugar per month!
