b'agreement with the river 119 yearsspace to do her ago has solved the problem. Injob of carrying trade, the river has honorablythe Water of provided reliable water for theLife that farm crops ever since. That oldsustains us all. wooden frame home we call theAny warnings farm office, where Judy came toneeded are our visit, still stands today. business, not hers. The base of this old oak tree on the high bank is 34 feet above ourAs I sit here, normal water level. This river hasIm hoping taught me that her level doesntThey were in an RV park built onmore people really go down. She only goes up.a floodway gravel bar a fewmight eventually learn what the During times of drouth, her flowblocks from our countyriver taught people over the years can be greatly reduced but hercourthouse. Just like those settlershere at this place. water level stays perty steady.in 1878, they had no river Since we met, shes never goneactivated flood warning system,Over and over, she reminds us that down more than 45 inches.and none exists here today.her protective clothing of plants should never be carelessly But listen: during our 30 years ofYes, early warnings can tell peopleremoved or bulldozed down and marriage, shes come over thatto move up and back, and savetailored into a carpet. She knows high bank three times.lives. But alarms wont stop thenot all plants are created equal. rivers periodic and determinedMany of our modernized The last time was fall of 2018fury to clear away everythinglandscaping plants of the last when 5 people washed past thishumans have built too close to her.century are imports from places old oak tree. She swept them awayShe demands that we give her thefar away from her native in the dark early one morning.riverbanks. The rivers original native plants are so much smarter than any we could import or introduce.A lot of things have changed since Judys ancestors first staked a claim on this land at the edge of the Llano River. Nowadays, there are precious few hillsides still covered with Little Bluestem, Indiangrass and Sideoats Grama. Those deep-rooted native prairies up in the hills and on the plateaus used to help catch every raindrop to feed the aquifers, which feed the springs, which feed the rivers. Those overgrazed native prairie grasslands have mostly given way to eroded cedar and mesquite brushy woodlands. Whitetail deer populations exploded when'