And we thought March weather was crazy???

We started the week off warm and sunny. We had rain and hail on Thursday. This morning we had frost. That was a surprise. I rode the motorcycle home from a friend's last night and it felt cold. If it had been November I would have thought frost. But, it is April and I "knew" it wasn't going to freeze. Wrong. I hope the little basil plant in the herb garden survived that.

Now what do we do? We have been busy this week. The corn is planted [ Finished that as the rain started on Thursday.] The cotton beds have been worked. The planter and harrows are ready to start planting on Monday. And it is cold.
   There are only two things I know for sure about growing cotton: if you plant it cold it will get sick, and if you plant it in the dry it will not sprout. Cotton likes a minimum 58F soil temperature. It was 52.5F this morning. The University of California has a really cool website that calculates degree days for cotton planting. You need a minimum 15 degree days for the five day forecast for good planting. Last week it was 30DD. Today it was 7.
So, we will wait. We'll check on Monday morning and go from there.

FLOOD RELEASES

What you are looking at here is a picture of flood release water going by us near Tranquillity, California. A neighbor tells me the water district told him that they are running 4,000 cubic feet per second [cfs]. That is enough water to fill a football field a foot deep in ten seconds. That is 8,000 acre feet of water A DAY! They told him they would run 4,000cfs for sixty days. THAT'S A LOT OF WATER GOING OUT TO THE SEA!
   Sorry, that kind of drives me nuts. We all hear about California's continuing water shortages. We fight over a few feet of water here and there and then we let nearly half a million acre feet run out to the ocean. In 2006 we let 27 million acre feet go out to sea in flood releases. That is enough water for every home, every business and every farm in California for a whole year, and we flushed it out to sea.One year later my water was cut by 90%! Are we crazy?
   The reality is there are wet years and dry years in California. I have looked back over the records from the 1860's to present. In every twenty year period there is a two or three year drought. We are fools because we do not prepare for this. The politicians and the environmentalists don't want to build any more dams. They want to use groundwater storage. OK. Does anyone know how much groundwater storage potential there is in California? I cannot find anyone in Sacramento or in the water community who knows the answer to that question.
   The next time you talk about water in California please think about this picture. On one little stream, in the middle of nowhere half a million acre feet of water were flushed out to the ocean.

OK, I got that off my chest. I feel better.

Actually, it has been a great week. The weather is beautiful. I am on the back porch with a cup of coffee. The sun is out and the birds are singing. The wisteria, lilac and star jasmine are blooming. I am going to rest, visit with friends and family and go to church this weekend. Monday we'll see if we can plant some cotton.

I hope y'all have a great week.

P