How bad is it? This is how bad it is. I tried to find a better view of the map, but basically, there's no water anywhere, and there's even less water in the Central Coast and the southern Valley. I live in the Central Coast. One good/bad thing is that all our water comes from here -- no water from the Sierra Nevada, no water from the Delta, no ( Read more... )

About six inches so far: by now we're usually pushing twenty around here. I figure if we got 20 in the whole season we'd avert actual disaster. With about twelve weeks left in the season, I guess we'll be all right if we get like an inch and a half of rain every week. That's possible. Is it likely?

Lately I stay in bed for a while after I wake up. I can do my morning surf in bed now because of my cute little obsolete barbie-pink laptop, and I can also write there for the same reason. This allows me to keep from dangling my legs from the chair for that time (which is lousy for all the sixteen jillion billion things that are wrong with them) ( Read more... )

The old waiver for irrigation standards is expiring again. It's been extended over again in the past, but while it has had a tiny bit of success, it hasn't generally improved the ag wastewater runoff situation in the Monterey Bay Area.

There's a cool thing that has been a side effect of putting together the Move On Council -- I don't know if it ( Read more... )

We went to Lighthouse Field.  I've been doing this thing where I go out to the beach in the morning on Saturday and on the way back we take a half hour to go round the field and I take pictures at six preset locations, long, medium, close, and macro shots, to document how certain plants and their communities pass the year.  I've been doing it for ( Read more... )

I just got a push poll, the kind where you know exactly who set it up after only a few questions.  It's all about the desalination plant ( Read more... )

Took the dog and the temporary dog to Meder Street Park yesterday morning. We walked for almost an hour but it didn't make me act like a human being (instead of, for example, a shelf fungus) later. The point is, however, that I've been playing hide and seek with a tick ever since. I keep getting it and losing it. There's no excuse for this. ( Read more... )

A few days ago I first realized that the riverbed is about half dry now, which is damned early. It's kind of cool for the dog -- dogs, actually, because I have the brother-in-law's clueless dog Roxy for another almost two weeks -- because the dry part of the riverbed is glorious to run around on and the river is running slow and safe and shallow ( Read more... )

Truffle and I spent over two hours mucking around on the river this afternoon. I guess I've forgiven the lupines. They didn't make me cry. Other things did, but not the lupines or the poppies or the other flowers. Truffle was so happy she could have written the definition for happy dog. There were squirrels to chase, and birds to stalk, and ( Read more... )

My favorite archaeologist says Bill Monning is "the kind of liberal who sends their kids to private schools ( Read more... )