First Day of Fall

The first day of fall in these parts always, and I do mean always, feels like summer.  Yesterday was no exception, it was about 90 degrees and sunny.  Fall creeps in steadily here, like smoke under the door, gentle, quiet and, at first, unnoticeable. She will first be providing us with colder evenings (low 50s and down into the 40s by next month), and then will mercifully keep shortening the length of the day by a minute or two until the heat can no longer make a stand during the afternoons. That's how it happens here.  The trees will not change color until November, and it will probably still feel like fall until just a couple of weeks before Christmas.  Then winter will set in for good and we will kiss our all-to-brief fall goodbye.

It is safe to say that I am weary of summer, yet I still count my blessings in regards to the many foggy, cold mornings we had in July and August, along with pleasant 80-degree days.  This summer was not a bad one at all, as far as temperatures go, but I am still ready for a change in seasons.

So now the wait for rainfall begins, especially at the end of this extremely dry year -- a record breaker out here in the west.  But before then we have a roof to repair and pellet stove to do the annual service on, so hopefully we can get all that done before the (hopefully) wet season sets in.

Fingers crossed on all accounts, especially for timely, heavy rain. 

In the meantime, we in the west wait earnestly for that first fallen leaf of autumn.

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.