The abundance of nature

Growing up in southern California, I always knew we were in a drought.

When I was a child, there were spots on the radio saying to turn off the water when you brushed your teeth.

We always timed our sprinklers.

Showers were better than baths because they used less water.


As an adult, it got even more pronounced.

Our neighbor in Sacramento "turned us in" to the city and we got a threatening letter from them, because we forgot to turn our automatic sprinklers from two days a week to one.

People are transforming their grassy lawns into desert oases.


But one thing I had never noticed until I moved here was... nature.  And spring is more like in the movies than it ever was in CA, Israel (again, desert), or even Cincinnati.

For example:

- Butterflies are everywhere.  Like, you look at a bush and there are 10 or 15 of them swirling around.

-  A duck and her ducklings were in our street the other day and followed us home.  Osher got very fluffy and upset that they were in our yard.

- I've spoken of the many geckos to be found in all places.

- Our soon-to-be-new house has a full-size iguana living in the attic.  No joke.

- Three weeks ago, there was this HORRIBLE noise at night. It woke Jonathan and I up, we thought someone was jackhammering at 3am.  It went on for days.  We mentioned it to a neighbor who nearly fell over laughing.  Apparently it was frogs mating!  Who knew. But then yesterday, Ari and I found probably 15 baby frogs swimming madly in our pool trying to stay afloat in the chlorinated water. Adira said that that was a direct result of all the noise.  We saved the frogs, and considered it our Passover miracle!