Can You Say "Drought"?

That's LaBarque Creek at the lowest point I've seen in four years. I've heard the word "drought" pronounced:

drawt
drowt
drowth
drawth

I say "drowt," but any way you say it, it contains the word "rough" and it tips this whole world over. Turkeys, deer, snakes, turtles, and bunnies move down to the creek edge and stay there, making a weird new city of animals and leaving my meadows empty. Tree leaves and cornstalks droop. Branches moan and break from dead trees. Hummingbirds vanish. I pour water in the birdbath at night and somebody drinks it all before dawn. It's so dry that the roadkill skunk dried out before it could stink much. Because I can't deeply water anything -- the water table's too low for the pump to work more than 10 minutes -- I have to decide which kitchen herbs are worth carrying water for. Usually the basil and rosemary. Because it's been so unrelentingly hot, with record-hot nights in the 80s, the parsley and cilantro have bolted anyway. The sage curls a little, but it ends up fine no matter what. And somebody ate every pear off the pear tree. Ten days ago it had two-inch pears high and low and now there is not a single one left, nor are there cores or scraps around the tree trunk. Squirrels chew things rather than eat them, so I bet the beneficiaries of the pears are the pair of obese raccoons.