Hope

The forecast for Northern California finally includes rain!  It's hard to say from the forecasts I've seen just how much we'll get - and one storm isn't enough to break this drought - but every little bit will help at this point.  All morning I've been enjoying Facebook posts from friends who live further north than Auburn celebrating the precipitation they're receiving.  I hope it's headed south!

As I said, one storm - no matter how large - won't be enough to break this drought.  Our soils are so depleted of moisture that anything that falls will soak in immediately.  Given the state of the grass on most of our rangelands, it will be at least 40 days before we get enough growth to provide any nutritional value to our sheep.  And since we've been so dry for so long, this rain will probably not produce any run-off - which we desperately need to start re-filling stock ponds and re-charging our springs and creeks.

Even so, the rain brings hope.  We'll hope that if one storm can break through the ridge of high pressure that's been blocking storms from California since early December, more will follow.  If nothing else, rain will be a welcome change from the dry and unseasonably warm weather we've had all month.  If nothing else, rain will wash the dust off of everything.  I jokingly told my family that if it does rain this week, I'd put on my bathing suit and dance in it - at least they hope I was joking!  We'll see....