A hot walk in the forest where I don't bring the dogs any water.

This is a real thing. Trump told a Fresno campaign rally, there is no drought. He wasn't joking, he said the state's diverting the plentiful water to save an endangered fish. It's a contextual problem, the drought's caused groundwater to go dry in the valley and there are ugly water rights issues going on. Not enough water to grow crops anymore, you see it when you're out there, huge fields of nothing but dust. The drought is real, and the drought is everywhere, and the drought's the reason there's no water.

Trump's presented climate change as a hoax. And would pull the USA out of the Paris climate accord. Science has already proven climate change, and it's the reason for the drought. It's hot and it doesn't rain, the weather's really messed up, year after year. Not just here but everywhere. It's already unstoppable.

We walked around the upper edge of the woods yesterday, in the afternoon. Haven't been walking in there lately, thought it would be nice. It's Civil War weekend, and the re-enactors have realistic muskets and a real cannon that shoot something that doesn't kill people but booms for miles around. Thought maybe up higher on the ridge was further and it would be quieter.

It wasn't. Gustavo did just fine, I brought along some cookies and there were cookies for every boom and he made it. I think he's gotten better. He's scared of the booms but not like he used to be. Up there on the ridge, there's nothing left. All the years of hot and no rain, even after this rainy year, it's thin and sparse and there's shade from the dead looking oaks and bays and scrubby pines, so many of them have gone down though. We couldn't walk all the way to the river, too busy of a hiking day to sneak down that way with so many dogs. So I told the dogs there's water in the car, just deal with it and everyone will have a drink when we're done. We were all thirsty on this walk, made Ruby wheeze and Banksy's tongue hung sideways the whole time with drool slobbering down.

For about an hour around noon, we could hear the commemorative battle between the bipartisan north and south. Gray and navy coated devotees to remembering when one country was split over something so wrong, so split they all started killing each other. Happens all the time. They gather out on the lawn, with the cannon and the guns and fight out a precisely choreographed battle. Nobody dies for real in this one, the guns are all for show. The cannon is immense, not sure who brings the cannon, does it live in someone's garage the rest of the year? After being shot, or bayonetted through the heart they just play dead, everyone laying there motionless in the sun while the booms blast through the woods. It only lasts an hour, then the dead people get up and collect their stuff and high five and say nice job and everyone else goes back to their cars and drives home. Then it's quiet again and we keep walking along the ridge, where everything's so dead we can see clear through the forest to the other side and back to our car where the water is and then we drive home.