I didn’t know what category to put this in, nothing really fit. So, entertainment is the recipient of this.
We here in NC are in a drought. Depending on where you are in the state it relatively mild to extreme. We are multiple inches of water short for the water year. We haven’t had too many storms do much except cool us off.
I had speculated with Mrs CCU if we’d see water restrictions. Well, we haven’t as of today. That may change soon.
Regardless, the city of Raleigh has instituted water restrictions. Nothing too serious, at least compared to the West.
I’ve been starting to think that the entirety of the US may in a drought situation similar to that of the Dust Bowl era. Hopefully we don’t see the massive negative effects of soil blowing across the country, or the wholesale loss of communities. This is all just a thought, but based on history. Which leads me to another thought on the Dust Bowl. Ken Burns had a really good documentary on it, I highly recommend.
Even though they’ve asked people here to not start watering until May, there are at least a half dozen houses I run by (South Jordan) who already have their sprinklers on every morning.
I don’t think we will see the type of soil erosion from the Dust Bowl era as farm techniques have changed. One of the big things that came out of that era was the idea of strip farming where planted crops alternated between fallow strips. That is going away now in favor of low or zero till farming where the stubble from the previous crop is left in place. In my grandpa’s day they used to burn the stubble off and/or till it all in but modern seed drills work just fine with the stubble left in place. The reduction or elimination of tilling helps keep the soil in place and helps retain water
One of the nice things about our place. We back onto a farm, so we see the modern methods. My only complaint is that we have a hard time keeping our backyard weed free because stuff gets carried over into our yard, and most of our grass “wakes” up later in the year. So, from late Jan through now, usually, our back lawn is very weedy. Now it’s just brown with patches of weeds and early season grass patches.
In my neighborhood, just south of the Uof U, mostly, people are not watering yet. My yard looks like hell, and I’m watering only the plants that in danger of dying, and planning my next water saving round of relandscaping.
But I have to complain bitterly about the neighbors, 2 doors to the west (who ironically are the most liberal couple on the street), and they are watering morning and afternoon.
Haven’t turned my sprinklers on yet. Living near the hillside, I get a lot of weeds in my yard. This time of the year I loathed spraying the weeds because I don’t want to eliminate the local bees food.
My backyard was buzzing like no other on Monday with all of my fruit trees getting bee visits.
I installed new bees last Saturday afternoon after two years without them. They seem to be taking well, but I put on our insulating top last night because of the weather forecast just to be safe. Since snow has been falling here for two hours I made the right choice.