[Old Sarge]

I am always pleased to see VDH’s eloquence.

[PGalt]

Great article by VDH. Thanks for posting.

[Cowgirl]

As you go softly into the night, I wish you well. Don’t wait too long to face reality, it’s not going to get better. Selling out to the almond growers may be your last chance to benefit from your inheritance. Maybe you could buy the whole thing back when everything crashes.

[bert]

—— diabetes is alarming among the population at large-——

Diabetes is a population governor, a damper to self regulate population growth

between diabetes and drought, there might just be a chance for survival of prequake california

[x1stcav]

I got out of there 25 years ago. Haven’t been back in two. Plan to never go back again.

[Excellence]

Tweeted to my govt reps.

[outofsalt]

"half the mail seems to be drought information from various agencies."

I bet the other half is from democrat fundraisers.

[ScottinVA]

Mexico is probably giving a hard look at California and reviewing whether it really wants to proceed with “reconquista” anytime soon. It’d be taking in quite a mess.

[CAluvdubya]

This is the area where I grew up. My dad grew grapes and peaches. I'm so glad he doesn't have to see what's become of the land he worked so hard over.

Get rid of the illegals and quit worrying about the Delta Smelt. That would solve a lot of CA's problems.

[Aleya2Fairlie]

I recognize this scenario as a snapshot of what America will come to be. It’s the Liberal, Communist/Marxist dream and transformation that Obama promised. He is accomplishing the groundwork and implementation of it at astonishing speed.
Goodnight America.

[Mister Da]

I had a thought I wanted to bounce off you guys.

If CA cities are forced to cut water consumption drastically - say 50% or more, wont the sewer systems start to have backup problems because of a lack of adequate water flow to flush out the system?

[Busko]

Kalifornia Dreaming, The great state is now in decline because of its great leadership. Libtard after Libtard destroying the state. When they are done there they will head East to Texas and other States that are more productive so they can sink their political fangs into them and poison them.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

So depressing. So true. California is on the forefront of collapse. Most of the rest of the states will hold out much longer. California is racing toward it.

[originalbuckeye]

Lived in SoCal for 20 years......left 5 years ago. Husband's company gave up and moved to a neighboring state so they could stay in business. I really miss friends, the activities and the beauty that California is. Driving down the 5 through the Central Valley in the fall of 2009, I noticed many small yellow signs that said ‘Congress Created Dustbowl’. Nearly 6 years later, the whole state is experiencing what the Central Valley has been enduring for a while now. I don't know what it would take to awaken the Legislators to reverse their agenda, but it is destroying a beautiful state. This seems to have really ramped up since Motor-Voter became Law. I pray the whole country doesn't follow California into the silt at the bottom of the pond. But we are all heading there at full tilt right now. Some a bit slower than others, but the Feds are assuring we will all end up in the same place eventually.

[Billthedrill]

A rather melancholy bit, that.

All that remains is the original house I live in and 40 acres.

It used to be a much bigger farm than that and VDH was, before he became a classicist, a raisin farmer. Try that now and you lose everything. And, as he has pointed out with less bitterness than I would have, people with palatial Hollywood mansions are complaining that their lawns are brown because - wait for it - of the rapacious farmers.

This isn't, of course, the first drought that California has experienced, but it is the first with the sort of population density that makes it impossible to endure and a political system that makes it impossible to cure. A farm can go back to the land in a handful of years after decades of cultivation; a city takes decades of senescence before it turns into the sort of hellhole that cannot support life, especially if the inhabitants find it within their means to stave off ruin by plundering the dwindling rural economy. If I were a rural landholder there such as VDH I wouldn't be for long. Things are likely to get much worse before they get better.

Already the signs of plunder are before us through VDH's eyes. Gangs of dumpers, gangs of collectors, copper thieves, property invaders, and vandals seeking anything worth stealing. For now these are only temporary interlopers. In time they'll have come to stay.

It is with a bit of cosmic irony that a region populated by Dust Bowl refugees should now find itself being depopulated by the same. Sad that those who managed to make it a go are now being ushered out by rule-changers and playing-field-tippers, a productive class displaced so that the unproductive may lay claim to land they can do nothing with. There isn't much room for a freeholder in that mess. Time to pack it in and go.