Extreme weather nothing new to Dayton

"Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does any thing about it."

I believe Mark Twain said that. I've also heard, if you don't like the weather here in Nevada, wait a minute.

Nevada has some of the most extreme weather ever seen. I know, because I've lived in some extreme-weather areas.

In Dayton, the weather plays a great part of our everyday existence. One of the results of the weather here is drought. Throughout Nevada's documented history, starting when it was the Utah Territory, there were long, hot dry spells year after year.

One I remember was the dry spell at the end of the 1990s that lasted about eight years.

The Carson River evaporates to a trickle, completely drying up in spots. Farmers and ranchers suffer from these dry spells.

One of the frightening results of dry spells is wildfire. I don't think I have to tell you how fast they can run through the countryside. It's important to be defensive and keep yards cleaned of dry grass and rubbish that feed fires.

Emma Nevada Loftus speaks of weather extremes in her 41 years of daily diaries written about Dayton. Several times, she records floods that washed out bridges, not only the bridges that crossed the river but the Eldorado Creek bridge, too (the bridge about a block to the right of the east side of the Carson River bridge).

When that bridge goes out, the Ricci family stays home.

It was of great concern to folks in Dayton during dry years because the river, as I've noted in previous articles, was their source of household water. Emma speaks of friends coming to her house for a bucket of water.

Drought hasn't been the only weather extreme. Bitter-cold winters were hard on people, too. Emma wrote of water pipes from the reservoir freezing, resulting in no water getting into people's homes. Insulation was nonexistent in the early 1900s. If anything was used to protect underground pipes, it was sawdust.

In 1950-51, everything froze up, and the cold spell lasted for weeks. Of course, that's not the only time. Emma recorded several winters of severely cold weather, including the time when it was below zero from Christmas until the end of February.

My first years of living here, it dropped below zero for a couple of weeks, freezing new trees I had planted.

Gardens, too, suffer from our extreme weather. You sometimes have to plant your vegetable garden more than once. Producing fruit is a sometimes thing.

This year, I have apricots for the first time in several years.

• Ruby McFarland is a 17-year resident of Dayton, a board member of the Dayton Historical Society and a docent at the museum.