I don’t like being cold and damp, shoveling snow, or having to wear pants indoors. But neither do I care for the idea of watching the Front Range turn into the Sonoran Desert, only without the great Mexican food.

The local fish-wrapper reported the other day that Bibleburg has enjoyed just a tenth of an inch of moisture this month and for the year to date is eight inches under normal precipitation. This is not a positive development, even for those of us who reach for a cold beer over a glass of water on a summery afternoon. For example, you can’t make beer without water. Unless you’re Coors, which seems to do just fine with Rocky Mountain trout piss.

South of us, in the Land of Enchantment, Elephant Butte Lake is experiencing drought conditions unseen since the year of my birth, which as regular readers know occurred the better part of quite some time ago.

And there’s no relief in sight. Not here, anyway. According to the weather wizards, there isn’t so much as a hint of a whiff of a rumor of a whisper of any precip’ in the Bibleburg forecast over the next 10 days.

What there is, is a parade of 60-and-sunny that will delight me in the short term (I have two bikes to review and more on the way) but gives me The Fear as regards the long term.

This autumn, for the first time since we’ve lived here, a neighbor declined my offer of the usual dozen or so bags of fallen leaves from our silver maple for use in her composting. She has also downsized her once-elaborate front yard to something better suited to a high-desert climate.

“What’s the point in gardening if it’s never going to rain again?” she asked.