Makin' Rain

So what's a cloudy day like this good for?  Not rain.  Nope, on this dry but cloudy day, I'm running the sprinklers (which is happening in this picture, if you look to the far left).  Over the last couple of days I've noticed our last stretch of remaining lawn in the back yard has taken on a definite yellow-ish cast, indicative of a lack of water.

It's only March, which in a normal year would usually mean our watering schedule would still be set for winter....a 10 minute sip of water, once a week, just to cover any dry weeks between storms.  You don't usually dare do more than that, because those regular rainstorms provide more than enough potential water to soak your yard nicely.  But in this very dry year, that 10 minutes weekly is just not cutting it, so last night I adjusted the watering schedule on the timer to water longer and more often.  And with a long stretch of clear weather in sight, it looks like we're going to be headed into a very, very brown and dry summer.

It's not a good sign.

While one or two dry years won't change the fate of our world, a longer period would.  Steve, the owner of the winery we like to frequent, was telling us a couple of weeks ago he's already had to start up his wells to water his vineyards, which means him, us and all our neighbors are all taxing the aquifer a little more than normal in this dry year.  And in an area of falling aquifer levels, that's never a good thing.

The other problem is the mineral content of our well water, which is high. In a municipal area, you'd just call it extremely hard water, capable of clogging your pipes and making your glassware opaque.  But in agriculture it's different. Every year, this area counts on some good, drenching rain to remove the built-up minerals from the soil and wash them away, so the rain deficit is a problem here, too, as plants don't grow as well in soil with mineral build-up.

The only bright spot is that, with so little rainfall, the brush around the area has not grown up as green or as thickly as it sometimes does.  This means that we probably have a lower wildfire risk than usual. But unfortunately, it also means that some wildlife, like deer, will have a harder time finding forage.  

But since it's a little late for enough rainfall to bring our totals back to rainfall, we'll just push through and look towards next year for some better rain totals.