We got the cotton planted this week. We have never had conditions like this. The soil temps are up over nine degrees since Monday morning. The cotton is sprouting fast. We are knocking the caps off already. It will be a long season and I won't relax until the last bale is picked and ginned. But, we are off to a good start.
You can see the oats. The wheat is started heading out and is already starting to fill with milk. It is a beautiful sight. This weeks warm weather is a reminder that this month's green wheat fields will start turning golden by the end of next month.
There was a little hiccup in the orchard. They were supposed to finish installing the drip system this week while we were off planting cotton. The original order for the drip lines was lost. Short end to the story: New drip line has been ordered and is supposed to be installed next week. I will keep you posted.
Reason 10 in my book, "Ten Reasons:Finding Balance on Environmental Issues is about natural resources.
Reason Ten: Natural
Resources
#10-I’ll
start believing San Francisco environmentalists when they stop taking their
drinking water from a national park.
This
chapter is about more than water. What is at issue is the use of natural resources. In the American West one of the largest natural
resource issues is water; water
for farms and water for cities. There are other natural resource issues we must address on a national and global scale such as; coal, natural gas,
timber and even rock quarried for road construction.
One of the biggest ironies in environmental
policy, that I have personally experienced, is that San Francisco takes over eighty one billion gallons of water out
of a national park, transports it hundreds of miles across our valley, uses it once and flushes it out to the ocean. Then I have had San Francisco
environmental attorneys lecture me about water conservation and how if we were more careful with our
water supply we wouldn’t have the water quality issues we have in our valley. Unbelievable. I could solve some real water quality issues here in the San Joaquin Valley if
I could have that quarter
million acre feet that San Francisco uses to utilize our area...
Natural resource issues are important to all of us, even if you have never been on a farm. Because we all have a stake in natural resource
issues it is important we pay
attention and get them right. This is important public policy and we have this amazing
system of self-government where we have a say in what happens...
I digress a bit, but my point is to highlight the importance of what is at stake. Water policy is not just a fight between the farmers and the
environmentalists, water
policy is not just a California or Western issue. Water policy is not, in a real sense merely an American issue. If we can get water policy in
California right we not only
solve the problem on my farm, we have also created a model
of natural resource use for the whole world.
It is ironic and scary that there was an editorial in this week's San Jose newspaper calling for the state control of groundwater through regulation. What gets me is that the same people who took away our surface water now want to take away our groundwater. The only solutions they offer are cutting off our means of production and raising taxes.When will they think of something new? If they win how am I going to farm? and where are you going to get your food? We have to find a better way to manage our natural resources!
If you are interested, you can find the book on Amazon.com and Barnes and Nobles website. Locally A Clovis Book Barn and Barnes and Nobles carry the book.
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