Drought

I don't know if you saw this article:

http://theguzzler.blogspot.com/2014/01/colorado-river-flow-cut-sharply-across.html

But it's about the drought here in the West and the cuts in delivery of Colorado River water.  I personally don't remember a January and December as dry as this.  Our acacia trees are already blooming!  That's UNHEARD OF in January!!!  And, temps in the 80's?

Thank goodness we don't have a front lawn.  Instead, we have several large trees which shade the yard (and house) during summer.  They also help to keep our air conditioning costs down.  We

 have a 6 foot fence around the front yard so the dogs can go out there and it helps keep "intruders" out.  We are only a block off a major street here in Palm Desert and we HAVE had folks ring our doorbell at midnight until we put up the fence!  NO more trespassers!  I also feel safer with it, especially when the dogs are out front.  That's a pic I took of our cottonwood tree out back.  And, no, I don't give it extra water since it gets water from the neighbor's sprinklers (which they run twice a day!)...sigh...

I also don't have automatic sprinklers.  Instead, I water the trees by hand.  I think (I hope) I'm using less water that way.

Oh, and our back "lawn"...yeah, I haven't watered it all fall and winter.  It's bermuda grass, so it's pretty indestructible.  I just let it go.  I need to mow it sometime...oh, well.

These plants pop up all over the yard.  I caught this hummingbird yesterday at one of them!