Where Did All The Water Go?

Less than a week after the multi-agency effort to release 650 million gallons of water into the Rio Grande as a “scientific experiment… to learn how the water flows through the river…”, all 650 million gallons of water have since flowed past Corrales, and the river is back to where it was last Monday before the water was released last Tuesday. I hope the bureaucrats learned how water flows through the river.

It seemed like a good time to post The Drought, that I wrote, recorded, and made a video asking the question, “Where did all the water go?” The song is raw and rough, in the style of what I call “Dry Metal.” The lyrics are at the end of the post.

Spunk: “I can’t believe all the water’s gone!”

Back to the start of the day.

Cracked clay on one side
Green slime on the other side
Dichotomousness?

Daily Doppel

Sunrise

The Drought
By Timothy Price

[Chorus]
Where did all the water go?
Where did all the water go?
Where did all the water go?

[Verse]
Scorched earth, cracked white clay
Fried in dryness, woe
Drought sucks life’s blood away
Where did all the water go?

[Chorus]
Where did all the water go?
Where did all the water go?
Where did all the water go?

[Verse]
Thirsty plants bow their heads
Pray for rain, the watershed
Parched seeds cry die of thirst
How have we earned this curse?

[Bridge]
Sun shines happiness
We frolic in deceptive rays
Encourages us to foolish ways
Water’s precious, so we say
But we waste it anyway
In denial as it dwindles
Less and less from day to day to day

[Chorus]
Where did all the water go?
Where did all the water go?
Where did all the water go?

[Outro]
Where once water flowed clear and cold
Green slime clings to mud
The water’s foul, so the waterfowl
Fly off in search of some
Where did all the water go?
Where did all the water go?
Where did all the water go?

¡Milagro!

Twilight

Jupiter under Resa’s Wolf Tree again

The Rio Grande at 5:30 a.m. this morning

Doppel loves the pink tarantula

The Rio Grande at 7:30 p.m. this evening. !Milgro! There’s water!

The Conservancy released water from Abiquie Reservoir. Why now? I have no idea. It’s past the growing season, and most of the cottonwoods in the bosque are suffering or bare, possibly dead. The release of water might be due with the agreements between Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. But it’s too little, too late for the farmers and the trees.

Big Gulps & Lost Soles

Dawn after the flash flood

Snow Egret caught a fish for breakfast

Another lost sole

Big Gulp

A lost soul, perhaps

The dark line on the opposite bank is the flash flood line, about 6 feet (two meters) above the current natural flow of the river.

Turtle tracks

The moon will be full tomorrow night, but we have not seen it the last few nights because of clouds.

Another Dawn

pTerodactyl tracks

A broken back lying on the riverbed at dawn

Spunk

The Other Side

Dawn

Dawn at Beaver Point

The river dropped enough that I could wade across the shallow rapids just north of 4th of July Point onto the east side of the river.

A beaver crawled into the shallow rapids soon after I crossed, then disappeared under the water as a coyote watched.

Coyote was checking out something in the grass under the jetties.

View from the east side of the river looking south and west at 4th of July Point.

Wildflowers

The west bank of the river

Drift wood and wildflowers at sunrise

Another view of the west bank of the river

Looking at the South Beach from the east side of the river

North side of the shallow rapids where I waded back to the west side of the river.

The island between the shallow rapids

The jetty sculpture garden at the south end of South Beach.

Back on the west side of the river, looking northeast at the other side of the river I had been walking on.

Looking northeast from 4th of July Point.

Map of my long walk on the riverbed

Clouds rolled in when I got back home.

Spunk

Sunset

Dragon at dusk

Home At Last

Albuquerque Airport: Passengers walk out of the secure area on their way to the baggage claim.

Crescent moon at midnight after being in airports and on airplanes for 20 hours.

Sunrise

Yucca at sunrise

Sasha helping unpack

Spunk helping unpack

Spunk taking a nap with me this afternoon

“You’re supposed to be napping, not snapping!”

Blooming

Sunset

Loki

Windy

We’ve had high winds the last two days that have blown most of the dried leaves off of Resa’s Wolf Tree.

The wind did not blow away the color at twilight this morning.

The goose thought the old paparazzo wouldn’t see it if it stuck its head in the water!

Glenda

Fewer leaves on Resa’s Wolf Tree at sunset than were there at twilight.

Fuzzy mountains from the dust

Cranes flew by fast with the tailwind.

The cranes hovered in the wind when they were coming in for landing.

Love & VD

Sunrise on VD

Besides making a great name for a rock band, Love & VD seemed an appropriate title for VD. The popularity of both in 2026 may be in question as fewer people have been hooking up and shacking up in recent years. For old, married folk, there is plenty of romance to be found in a heart-shaped pizza!

Jake and I walked through a tangled tunnel of love with pink markers this morning, and ran into…

The cranes were not in a loving mood

Jake found himself with a river to the left of him, bosque on the right. There he was, stuck in the middle with tree.

Does anyone remember “Tunnel Of Love” by Dire Straights?

“BIG YAWN! That’s what I think about Love & VD. There’s no way I can love a dawg, especially not a Virtual Dawg!”

We ran into a sweet Bernese Mountain Dog on our evening walk.

The Sandias were a nice VD red at sunset