My pictures of spring flowers in tonight's diary look surprisingly like what's
normal for late April, not March 9th. For many in the midwest, northeast and even the Atlantic states, the next paragraph will seem like some sick joke because you're under the control of severe cold and winter snow storms.
Today it reached 79 degrees at my house, which is 5 degrees warmer than predicted. For the entire rainy season to date we've gotten 33.63 inches of rain at my house (22 inches less than normal) with no measurable rain seen for the rest of March. February was the warmest on record ever for California. You all freeze and are swamped with snow while we are hotter and more parched than ever.
For the past several years the plants have responded to the much warmer, drier weather by blooming early. Most plants are a month ahead of schedule with some even six weeks ahead of normal. However bulb plants bloom on schedule as they've gone dormant by late summer or early fall and have already stored "next years' bloom" in their bulbs so they then follow their normal timely pattern. The overall affect is to have plants that normally bloom in stages over a period of 4-6 weeks all being in bloom right now!
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For the first time in California a rift is developing within the agriculture industry, which has always had a united front in politics and water rights. No longer. Central California farmers, ranchers and orchard owners use 80% of all the water in California. All the metropolitan areas and northern California farmers use 20%. Now there is trouble.
Last year central California farmers were given all the water they could be given. In order to help them out California waived environmental protections for the Sacramento Delta and pumped more water from it than ever which gets sent to central and southern California. The executive director of the State Water Resources Control Board, Tom Howard, admitted last week he blew it in calculating the impact of the damage to the Delta (which is the largest delta west of the Mississippi River Delta). 95% of juvenile Chinook Salmon that spawn died. The Delta Smelt population was the lowest in recorded history.
What have central California farmers done to adjust to our drought? They've been purposefully as irresponsible as they could in order to game the system to get even more water. They stopped growing annual crops and replaced them with "permanent crops" such as almond orchards because those crops get priority in water rights. Almonds need 400% (four times) more water to grow down there than they do up where I live. And almonds are super water hogs. They also pumped their aquifers dry last summer and are demanding more water than ever this year because they don't have any underground reserve anymore (the aquifers did not replenish this year). They now gripe that "the state puts fish ahead of people!"
The political pressure on Jerry Brown and the legislature to build the Twin Tunnels project (a $25 billion dollar project), which will take all the water out of the Sacramento River and ship it to central and southern California, is more intense than ever. All the metropolitan areas in southern California are demanding this project be built as well. What a mess. Central and southern California have not yet demonstrated any willingness to change their water consumption habits and have actually used more during the drought.
BTW, do you get HBO? If so are you watching VICE? It's true investigative journalism that simply no longer occurs on network TV. Last Sunday's show left me feeling nearly hopeless. Last year VICE went to Greenland to see about the effects of climate change on the glaciers melting. Last Sunday they showed what is happening in Antarctica which has 70% of all the fresh water on earth and 90% of the frozen fresh water on earth. Antarctica is melting faster now than Greenland. You need to watch it.
I can give you a glimpse of what it was about, but I need to tell you the truth. There is nothing we can do to stop climate change. All we still barely have time for is slowing it down a little bit so we can possibly adapt. Please do what you need to do to see last Sunday's VICE on HBO. The science is amazing. The truth will kick you in your groin.
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OK, time for pictures of what's blooming now. The wild grasses are already as tall as they get and they've completely gone to seed and will be withered and dry soon. This is what they look like today (they normally are like this in late May). Other pictures below are Chinese Fringe Flower (a month ahead of schedule), Gopher Plant (a type of Euphorbia), Hyacinth (we have several colors), Forget Me Not, Forsythia, Purple Iris (we have several colors), Candy Tuft and finally Grape Hyacinths. It's too beautiful here right now. It is so warm.
What do you want to kibitz about tonight?
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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