I’s been a great week between Christmas and New Years with Robbin’s brother Joe here to help out cutting wood, splitting oak, hanging gates, cleaning-up the Horehound, Turkey Mullein and tumbleweeds along the driveway, not to mention vehicle maintenance while getting 0.34″ slow rain that has revitalized our green. We’ve taken time-out around the BBQ fire pit with Bloody Mary’s and a Mexican Coffee to celebrate our accomplishments.
Though I would have liked the rain to come a month earlier, the weather’s been perfect, rain spaced well with warm temperatures as the canyon has turned from blond dry feed to green. The cows and calves have moved to the softened ground uphill to get a bite of both as we watch the virgin Red Angus bulls, close-by, fumbled their way to breeding postures. As Robbin quips, “It’s a wonder we get any calves at all.”
This is what we work for, an uncertain future, and wish you all a joyful 2024 !!
We’ve enjoyed the striking colors of the dahlias and zinnias in the garden during a relatively mild summer this year, with bouquets of both inside and out of the house. They have drawn a host of Monarch Butterflies after a bountiful year for the Showy Milkweed in our upper country. What great weather to wait for a rain!
With all the hoopla surrounding Climate Change and the approaching El Niño, suddenly the world is focused on the weather and a myriad of conflicting scientific observations and conclusions, heretofore ignored by most in the past. But for those of us involved in grazing livestock and dependent on the bounties of Mother Nature, October is the beginning of our rainy season as we try to look ahead into our futures.
Historically, “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” has offered as accurate a forecast as any:
PACIFIC SOUTHWEST
November 2023
4° below average
Precipitation 5” (1” below average)
December 2023
4° below average
Precipitation 3” (4” below average)
January 2024
3° below average
Precipitation 5” (1” below average)
February 2024
2° above average
Precipitation 6.5” (2” above average)
March 2024
3° above average
Precipitation 1.5” (2.5” below average)
April 2024
2° above average
Precipitation 5” (1.5” above average)
May 2024
2° above average
Precipitation 0.5” (1.5” below average)
June 2024
1° below average
Precipitation 0.05” (1” below average)
For what it’s worth, the rain total comes to 27”, well above our 15” average. We’ll just have to wait and see.
drycrikjournal 