The recent flooding in San Benito County coupled with green hills and flowing rivers makes it easy to forget the very recent dry times.
The Tres Pinos Creek was flowing high enough at Browns Valley Road recently that it was considered flooded. Just for kicks, I throw a big rock into the rapids and appreciate the sucking sound it makes as it displaces water: schler-lunk! I used to be able to tell how deep the water was just from that sound. There’s a sign posted saying the road is flooded, but I don’t need a stinkin’ sign because one rainy night in the late ‘90s I tried to cross and failed. I couldn’t see the deep rut the water had carved into the riverbed and the front end of my car was plunged beneath the current.
The creek is a reminder of the power of the natural world and an invitation to participate and celebrate its cycles.
In East of Eden John Steinbeck explains,
“I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow thin and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.” —Steinbeck
In another book, To a God Unknown, Steinbeck accurately illustrates the ways man attempts to understand and accept these cycles.
The National Steinbeck Center in Salinas is offering free admission to residents of San Benito, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties through Jan. 16.
Here’s a video of the creek running:
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