Weather Report Suite

Guacamole days are here at last!

Drought and global warming considered, we've actually had a fairly mellow summer to date temperature-wise. The few super high pressure systems have been relatively short-lived, and, even more miraculously, they are being disrupted by monsoonal flows from the south... not that we're getting measurable rain out of them, but hopefully a sign that El Niño is indeed on his way.

Currently we're sitting at 65, down from 91 this afternoon, thanks to strong onshore flow this evening. It's nights like this that I truly appreciate the marine influence on our Mediterranean climate. That said, Mr. Weatherman has teed up a solid 97˚ for tomorrow afternoon... ouch.

Fortunately, we are as prepared for it as we can be at this point. The true blessing of our summer thus far is the revival of our spring. The spring was this property's primary water source before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the epicenter of which was ~5 miles away.

After the temblor, it gushed and then went dry for long enough that a proper well was installed. Despite the dry years we've experienced of late, the spring has steadily flowed at approximately .5 gpm from the dry face of a sandstone wall via its 1.5" galvanized pipe throughout the 10 years we've owned this property.

It wasn't until this June, however, that I threaded the pipe and reconnected it to the 1100 gallon tank that sat abandoned in our woods. This allows me to haul 1-3 loads/day in a 275 gallon fertilizer tote to supplement our groundwater supply. Without this additional water, we would be looking at much drier trees, more vulnerable to sun scald from tomorrow's heat blast, since we're still operating on full-paranoia as far as well water is concerned.

It's definitely water the hard way, but water is water, and we are truly grateful! Our trees are grateful too and are rewarding our efforts with abundant crops, like the fatty Lamb Hass avocados pictured above!