Last fall doesn’t seem very far away. The fields at the Running Y Ranch were busy, full of equipment cutting hay and grain and getting the fields ready to dig potatoes. Before long bulkers were filling spud trucks, which headed to Malin to store the potatoes for shipping season. Occasionally, the ground would seem to open up to swallow a truck. When that happened, you remembered these fields were once part of Klamath Lake.
We were recently reminded of that again. On February 16th, Tricia called to say the fields were so full of water from much needed rain and snow that you couldn’t see where one field ended and another began. Not only that, swans, snow geese and Canada geese had flocked to the fields, and in some places there were so many of the white birds it looked like the snow had returned.
By the time we made it to the Running Y Ranch the next day, some of the flooding had subsided and the massive flocks had moved on. But what was left was still amazing. If it weren’t for the built up roads that ran along the edges, the fields would have appeared to be one contiguous lake. With swans and a few Canada geese swimming through the wheat and potato fields of last year, you could almost see how this area was once a seasonal part of Klamath Lake. And you could also see how these fields became so fertile.
Moments like these remind us how lucky we are to live in the Klamath Basin. Yes, there’s still a drought and we’re all praying for more snow to fall in the mountains and rain to fill our lakes and reservoirs. But watching geese swim in these flooded fields and swans pick through the leavings of last year’s grain harvest help give us a moment’s respite of today’s worries and remind us of the power and majesty of Mother Nature.
We hope you enjoy the photos below, and if you’d like to see any of them enlarged, just click on the picture and a gallery will appear.
And let’s all hope for more water!
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