Water Releases from the Nacimiento Reservoir continue.

• In spite of the drought, natural resource agencies insist on some amount of release even though the water is absorbed by the thirsty alluvial riverbed before it makes it more than a few miles.
• In early June, the cottonwoods began to turn golden in the recharge area. And it was much too early. 
• Today, further downstream, where the riparian habitat has come to depend on artificial flow, that source of water has now failed. Tree leaves are fading to a dull, translucence. Upper branches, which were already skeletal, stand in silhouette against a cloudless blue sky.

One has to search to find beauty in a desolated drought landscape, but it is there.