Drought and Disease

Okay - so I'll admit the title of this post is pretty depressing. Unfortunately, it also describes the times we're living through in Northern California (and much of the rest of the world). I'm writing this from the desk in my kitchen where I currently spend most of my work week (now that the University of California has mandated that most of us work from home due to the coronavirus pandemic). And as I write, most of the northern two-thirds of California remain in moderate drought, according to the National Drought Monitor. Indeed, we're currently on track (off track?) to have the driest year since we've lived in Auburn - drier, even, than 2013-2014. Drought and disease are our reality.

I'm amazed by how much has changed in California and the U.S. in the last five-and-a-half weeks. I returned from a conference in Denver on February 19 with a dry cough and a fever - symptoms that lasted about four days. COVID-19 was just starting to make news here - I wondered about my symptoms but wasn't too worried about it. We measured just 0.03" of rain last month - the driest February on record. Just three weeks after I returned from Denver, I was agonizing over my decision to inform all of the 4-H clubs in Placer and Nevada County that we shouldn't hold any meetings until April. This afternoon, we learned that the President has indicated that we need to maintain social distancing through at least the end of April.

This pandemic is something with which almost nobody alive today has any experience. My grandmother survived the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic as a child (an experience which, thankfully, she shared with me). Uncertainty and fear cause anxiety; anxiety, for some, causes irrational behavior. And this irrational behavior creates stress for others - at least it does for me. Whether this crisis ends in April or not, all of us will be different when we reach the other side of it.

I see similarities in the drought we're experiencing. From a forage perspective, we seem to be tracking at or above average in terms of grass growth (mostly due to the warm temperatures and false spring we experienced in February). This fact gives some a false sense of security - we'll be fine because we have more grass on April 1 than we normally do! When I look more closely, however, I see that the rangeland we grazed in February and early March has not regrown like expected. When I dig into the root zone on our annual rangelands, I find that soil moisture remains depleted - which explains why the seasonal creeks aren't flowing. And when I look at the forage we do have, I find that it is maturing 30-40 days earlier than normal. In other words, our drought is more than simply a lack of rainfall. We are seeing warm temperatures and dry days much earlier than normal. I worry about what our feed conditions will be next fall.

In many ways, drought and disease are similar conditions. Unlike other "disasters" - fire, hurricanes, floods, etc. - we don't know when these crises will end. And we don't know how bad they'll get. For me, these times have forced me to focus on what I need to do one day at a time. What can I control in my life today? What do I need to do tomorrow? This lack of control, I suspect, is one of the biggest challenges for most of us. We are so used to being able to control our own lives - our work, our social interactions, and our future. Drought and disease remind us that we're not in control - and that's incredibly uncomfortable for most of us.

Yesterday, I needed to visit a hardware store here in Auburn to buy some storage containers so I could clean up an alternative office space at home. The store was only allowing people to enter as others exited - an effort to facilitate social distancing. I thanked the store employee and security guard - which they obviously appreciated. They said they'd been told by some customers that they were overreacting. But isn't that the point?! Don't we all wish that our "overreactions" (staying at home, washing our hands - easy stuff, really) mean that our parents and grandparents (and our children and grandchildren) don't get sick? Don't we really wish that it won't be necessary to sell sheep (maybe this only concerns shepherds!)? We won't know if our actions will be sufficient until all of this is over. For me, that waiting might be the most difficult part.

Coping with Crisis Fatigue

Since last summer, my part of the world (the Sierra Nevada foothills) has experienced the threat of wildfire, multiple multi-day power shutoffs (related to the threat of wildfire), a dry October and even drier February (which impacted the forage available for our sheep), and now the spread of COVID-19. I realized one evening this week that I was inexplicably tired - more tired, even, than I usually get by the third week of lambing season. I realized that coping with one crisis after another has worn me out.

Since the first of the year, I've been worried about the lack of precipitation - and the resulting lack of grass for our sheep. As I write this, my worries are diminished (we've measured just under an inch of rain today), but not entirely eliminated. I suspect the dry, warm February will result in earlier-than-normal maturity in our annual grasses - which reduces the nutritional value and palatability of our forage at the time when we need as much high quality feed for our sheep as possible. And I'm still concerned about the amount of dry forage we'll be able to save for next fall.

More recently, I've been anxious about the spread of novel coronavirus and the resulting COVID-19 infections in California and in Placer County specifically. For me, the pace at which this current crisis has evolved has been especially difficult - every day, it seems, we learn something new about its spread and impact.

I serve on the board of a local agricultural organization that had scheduled it's biggest fundraiser of the year (a dinner and auction) later this month. Our board met Tuesday, and in a split decision, voted to go ahead with the dinner. I voted no, not because I was worried about disease transmission, but because I was concerned that many people would decide not to come and would ask for ticket refunds. Despite these concerns, the board voted to go forward. By Thursday, however, we learned that the California Department of Public Health was asking organizations to cancel or postpone gatherings of 250 or more people. We decided to follow their recommendation.

Also on Thursday morning, a local 4-H volunteer asked if I thought the club should go forward with a separate fundraising dinner scheduled for tonight. After talking it through with her, we decided to postpone this event, as well. I learned second-hand that other volunteers were critical of my decision - they felt I was overreacting. On Friday, I directed all of our 4-H clubs to suspend club and project meetings at least through the end of the month. I was a bit worried about the response to my caution; so far, I haven't heard any criticism. We'll see.

I learned during the 2012-2015 drought that decisiveness is a coping mechanism for me. I find that making and sticking to a specific course of action (selling ewes, for example) is difficult but ultimately reduces my anxiety. Indecision, on the other hand, stresses me out. I have also been told that I'm a very deliberate person (which I take as a compliment, mostly). I do find that I give a great deal of thought to the downstream effects of my decisions. I know that sometimes my decisions may turn out wrong - what if I sell sheep, for example, the week before the rain returns? What if I suspend 4-H meetings and it turns out that our anxiety over COVID-19 turns out to be overblown?

My friend and colleague Leslie Roche helped me look at this conundrum differently yesterday. I had mentioned that I was a little worried that our 4-H families would think I was overreacting. She said, "What might seem extreme now may be exactly what we need in 10 days - and hopefully not less than we need. And if everything turns out ok then, yeah - that's the point, right?!" Coping, I realized, also means sharing our anxieties with friends and family - they always provide perspective and reassurance!

Finally, I find my lifestyle and practical skills help me cope. I told someone yesterday that I feel so fortunate to have freezers full of food that we've raised. And I'm comforted by the knowledge that I have the skills and resources to refill those freezers as necessary. A full woodshed, a fire in the woodstove, and a pot of stew on the stove are reassuring, as well. And sheepherders, after all, are masters at social distancing!