The Way it Was

I took this photo in February of 2009; you could pretty much count on February looking like this until about 7 years ago.  This year the ground is totally bare, and the soil is so dry I'm surprised it doesn't blow away.  We got about 5 inches of rain back at the beginning of January, but that's all we've received since the start of our rainy season in October.  The climatologists are saying that this forest is drier than it was at the end of our five year drought that ended in 2016. 


I'm wondering if there will even be any wildflowers blooming this Spring...