All the leaves are brown

PARCHED fields, shallow lakes and wilting trees testify to California’s four years of drought. From Palm Springs to Palo Alto, lawns of luscious green are now an ugly brown. Scrubby grassland grows in once-fertile fields. The Golden State is short of more than 1.6m acre-feet (2 billion cubic metres) of water even before summer’s start. But at the Sacramento County Fair last week, children encased in inflatable spheres bobbed across giant paddling pools and pampered pigs were sprayed from mist bottles. “It’s not so bad this drought, we’ll get through it,” said one young goat-keeper.