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On the road to
Casper
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I always enjoy the opportunity
to drive a new road—often to the extent of finding
myself temporarily lost on a “short cut”. This past
week I had the opportunity to drive a road I had not
driven before—Wyoming highway 220 which runs from
Rawlins north northeast to Casper. Rawlins Wyoming
sits in the middle of what I would call a high
intermountain desert. The dry rocky soils support
sparse vegetation composed primarily of grasses,
sage, and an abundance of rabbitbrush. The
rabbitbrush here all seems to be smaller and more
compact than those found around
Scottsbluff—appearing to reach mature heights of 18
to 24 inches with a similar spread—making them
potentially outstanding xeriscape plants. The size
appears to be genetic rather than climate related,
because nowhere is there any evidence that the
plants have ever been larger in past years when
rainfall has been more abundant. But I digress.
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Those two
geographically juxtaposed images of sparse high
desert grassland and lush irrigated farms have given
me a new appreciation of the vital and yet tenuous
connection that we in this region have to the water
which sustains our usually hectic and distracted
lives and vocations.
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Previous Articles
April 27, 2006
Crazy Clematis
May 04, 2006
Ornamental Grasses
May 11, 2006
Perennials
May 18, 2006
Herbs
May 25, 2006
Hummingbird Garden
Party
June 1, 2006
Gardening with Kids
June 8, 2006
Wildflower Week
June 15th
Shade Garden
June 29
Thumbs,
Feathers, Fruit
July 6, 2006
Reading Plants
July 13th
Back to the Oregon
Trail
July 20th
Theatre West Garden
Walk
July 27th
Notes from the Garden Walk
August 4th
Cereal Killers
August 10th
Grass Hedges
August 17th
Xeriscape
Refresher Course
August 24th
Fall is for
Planting
August 31st
Tree Roots at the
Old Pen
September 7th
Recipe for Enjoying
Autumn Landscapes
Coming Soon
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The first 80 or so miles of the
approximately 110 miles to Casper the highway winds
through a series of wide low mountain valleys and
the landscape can only be described as desert-like.
On this particular bright sunny morning a light blue
haze hung over the mountains to the east creating
breathtaking vistas. But the most striking aspect
of this particular “blue highway” journey was the
dramatic transformation of the landscape that occurs
as one passes the Alcova-Pathfinder dams. Within
the span of about two miles the landscape changes
from sparse, dry, and tawny (a nice word for brown)
high desert grassland to one of green hay and corn
fields dotted by farm places with their requisite
windbreaks.
The change occurs so suddenly
that it is almost disorienting. This is probably
the time of year when the effect of man-made
irrigation projects on a regional landscape is
likely to be most noticeable—the non-irrigated
desert-grassland is often at its driest, and the
irrigated farmland filled with the green foliage of
alfalfa and corn. But for someone whose career has
been almost entirely dependent upon by the benefits
of the artificial supplemental rainfall of
irrigation water, the two mile journey from desert
to lush farms was a light bulb moment.
Over the past thirty or so
years that I have lived in Wyobraska I had certainly
read many thousands of words about the irrigation
reservoirs in Wyoming and the network of canals and
diversion dams that brings that water to the thirsty
fields of that line the North Platte River valley
through eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska, but
that two mile drive this past week was the picture
that conveyed an impact that thousands of words in
newspaper and magazine articles had never been able
to fully convey.
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As I reflect back on those few
miles along the road to Casper several thoughts come
to mind. First, the indigenous landscape of this
region does have its own natural beauty which has
been dramatically altered as one of the side effects
of the irrigation projects which are so vital to the
region. This is not to say that we humans should
not attempt to add beauty and interest to the
residential and commercial landscapes in which we
live our lives. But in a region in which water is
such a vital and tenuous commodity it is only
prudent that we use it judiciously. To me that
means using as little as possible to create
colorful, interesting, and, yes, green, landscapes—a
goal which we in Wyobraska have only barely begun to
work towards.
Second, the power of water to
transform a landscape is profound. Yet most of us
Wyobraskans take the ready availability of water for
granted—at least until our supply is threatened.
The past (or should I say current) drought has
certainly increased awareness among Wyobraskans
about the tenuous nature of the supplies of water
available to this region. Yet even during one of
the worst and most prolonged droughts in memory,
most of us had not had to significantly reduce our
use of water in anything other than in symbolic
ways. But as those two miles along the road to
Casper graphically illustrate, the agricultural and
related commercial landscape of the North Platte
River Valley is a totally man and water made
landscape—and that landscape is increasingly
threatened, not only by natural phenomena, but
equally by our collective lack of awareness of the
uncertain source and supply of the water that is
absolutely vital to our lives.
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