The juniper pollen has cranked up early this year, and the irrigators with groundwater pumps (legal or not, it’s hard to know) are firing them up, but the most telling sign of spring was the kettling sandhill cranes this morning. … This winter has been dry in the headwaters, and the latest forecast calls for just half of normal flows on the Rio Grande entering New Mexico’s “Middle Valley,” where the cranes and I live. … We’ll be fine. We’re used to this. Irrigators will troop down to the irrigation district board meeting the second Monday of each month to complain about not getting water to grow stuff, but there’s a sad resignation to the ritual. We live in a desert. Water is a blessing when it comes, but the reality of desert living requires a stoicism of stubborn acceptance.