California Drought pics

We really need to find ways to deal with this. It's going to affect the whole country in negative ways if we don't.

There's a lot of development work going on with desalination, and I don't doubt they can solve the drinking-water problem, and take care of residential and even indistrial use. But agriculture is going to be tougher, and we depend heavily on California produce.

I suspect that other parts of the country, ones that are now producing mostly grain crops, could take up the slack. But that would mean huge displacements of people and production.

I don't know the numbers, and numbers are the big story here, but my feeling is that we're not taking this issue seriously enough. Even if it is a natural cycle, and that it will solve itself in the long run, as Keynes said, in the long run, we're all dead.

Reply to
Ed Huntress
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On 03/22/2015 10:34 AM, Ed Huntress wrote: ...

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Not much, no...the midwest is generally too short a growing season for the produce crops to make it particularly productive for much of the CA-specific production, sorry.

And, of course, much of us are in severe drought as well as the jet patterns and the El Nino/La Nina and the general global oscillation patterns are global, hence affect broad areas similarly...

Draw a line from the Pacific NW corner to the southern tip of FL on the map and with a few exceptions other than the coastal NW and towards the SE, if you're to the south and west of the line it ain't good. The two targets are, of course, S CA and TX/OK/KS. The good news is that it has begun to at least abate somewhat in the midwest indications are some more movement. Last two years, all of KS was at least D2-D3 and 40% was D4 (exceptional) extending the current areas that show D0/D1 in the upper high plains/midwest to D2/D3...

Being dryland wheat/milo farmer in SW KS, we pay attention to such things... :) (We're in that D3 bullseye in the SW corner)

Reply to
dpb

Gunner Asch on Sun, 22 Mar 2015 00:55:22 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Which is politics exacerbating an existing "natural" situation.

My understanding of California history is that the first four attempts to settle in the LA basin failed, due to famine and drought.

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

Oh, that's interesting. I just took a look at some of the animated drought maps. It looks brutal.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

...

'Tain't good, fur shure...last year ended up not _too_ bad locally, depending on just when/where local showers fell. We're in fourth year; unfortunately, the USDA starts the drought clock over at the beginning of each calendar year so as far as their concerns go, it's a yearly thing. Were "century farm" this past year; grandfather homesteaded this place in 1914 so went the the Dust Bowl of the 30s. In looking back, two years ago we had less total here at the house than any year he recorded--just under 10" as compared to about 12" was lowest in the 30s. The early 50s was another stretch here, it holds our personal record of '55-56 of only 9" for the year. That one was broken by a "blizzard of the century" in late spring of '57 that lasted from a Saturday afternoon thru next Monday night at 50-70 mph wind and snow.

'58 began a stretch of very good years, similar to those of the '20s when grandfather was getting established--if hadn't had that stretch wouldn't have been able to hang thru the 30s.

Reply to
dpb

Then came William Mulholland.

There was a good movie with Jack Nicholson which tapped that theme. Chinatown, 1974.

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More info on the result of Mulholland's work.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Your family was right in there for an important part of American history. I'll bet they have some great stories.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Have only one Auntie still around...she was grade-school age thru the worst of the 30s. She had a girlfriend who's father worked for the City utility in town which was a real gift to have a reliable job at the time. She said this friend said a final "...and bless Liberal Power Company!" for a closing bedtime prayer every night.

A great aunt kept a letter from one of my other aunts (older than the above) who told her story of the week--she had, amongst school work and other ordinary chores, gathered, washed, candled and packed 96-dozen eggs. And this, of course, was just one week of a never-ending stretch of them. The letter ends with the lament "And, oh, the EGGS!!!"

Them was tough folks...

Reply to
dpb

On 03/23/2015 9:22 AM, dpb wrote: ...

...[couple of SW KS Dust Bowl stories elided for brevity]...

One last one...my grandfather, "Andy" and his brother initially homesteaded on this "home quarter" together. After a couple of years grandpa bought out Frank who moved to another place NE of town about 10 miles north of us. Granddad was a "go-getter", Frank was a little more relaxed in his approach to things; still quite successful, but a little more given to diversion.

The story is that while still farming together and heading out for morning chores on day Frank says, "Andy, I never was afraid of work but _must_ we sneak up on it in the dark?"

Reply to
dpb

I'll say they were tough. We have plenty of Depression-era stories in my family, but combining it with the Dust Bowl must have made them epic.

My Depression-era relatives were hard-boiled New Englanders. I never knew if it was the Depression that boiled them so hard, or if it was just three centuries of plowing rocks.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

...

It hardened people in different ways, some became so concerned even after the era was over they never did recover. I know of an old fellow only slightly older than grandfather down in the OK panhandle about 40 mi on W from us who never got over the feeling of needing to miser everything--he never bought any newer or larger equipment nor other improvements so when there were better years he couldn't take advantage of them owing to simply being so outdated couldn't do more than just get by.

OTOH, others like grandfather were exceedingly cautious but didn't let it scar them permanently to the point of being overly so. He continued to grow the farm and keep up with changes in production practices and conservation, etc., and came through in the end, quite successful. As noted, when I was a little tyke in the 50s things were again in a tough spell but it wasn't as long a duration and the overall economy wasn't in a depression so it was a little easier. Mom had a teaching certificate so she began substitute-teaching in those years to bring in some off-farm income. In the 30s when she graduated with that degree there was _no_ teaching position open in the entire state; she ended up here because the only job she could find was as a secretary in the HS office.

I think the far NE'eners are just different, too...there's certainly a background there of a tough place to make a living that definitely has an affect and that is/becomes cultural. The Depression undoubtedly honed it and again as above, everybody reacted differently.

If hadn't had that stretch of 12-15 yrs before that showed what this ground _can_ produce and was good overall economic time prior to the

30s, we'd not be here now; no way would they have had sufficient resources to be able to hang on. As it was, I've been told probably another year or two would've been about the limit of hanging on then although you can never know how it would've worked out.
Reply to
dpb

If some in California had not cancelled or re-manufactured the nuke power stations - they could for years drive desalination stations into water.

They need to start filling the lakes. Even the lake in death valley.

LA for years dumped water into the ocean because they got a sweet heart deal on water. Get it if they didn't need it. Don't give it to the farmers let them dry out and drop the large lakes in Northern Ca.

Sometimes I think CA deserves itself. Short sighted.....

Mart> >

Reply to
Martin Eastburn

On Mon, 23 Mar 2015 22:35:50 -0500, Mr. Ed said to Wilbur:

Life is a sexually-transmitted, 100% fatal disease.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Had an aunt that, while not scarred by the depression, it did leave a lasting impression. When I was about 12 or so my dad won a company contest, earning a trip for two to Vegas. So Aunt Nita came to take care of us 4 kids. First morning, she prepped our breakfast, bowls of oatmeal. The usual glass of milk was missing and we pointed this out to her. I fondly remember her sharp look and commenting "What, milk in a glass? You have milk on your cereal!" We assured her we always had a glass of milk too. She finally relented, but sternly warned she would check with our parents... :)

Jon

Reply to
Jon Anderson

My family was still farming lands they had settled from around 1670 to the 1750s, so they were adept at getting through tough times. By around 1940 they had all switched over to dairy farming. Cows don't care about the rocks.

My immediate family moved from NH to NJ in 1921. They'd had enough of farming in such a cold climate. They survived the Depression fairly well.

From what the history books say, it's amazing that any of them were able to hold out. It took an enormous amount of determination and faith.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

But now, the number of conservative republican elected officials in California has been on the serious decline since the mid-2000's.

The chances that solutions to all of this will be found sooner.

Reply to
mogulah

On 03/24/2015 1:57 AM, Jon Anderson wrote: ...

Chuckles...yeah, that's certainly a very typical response and she was certainly not alone in the feeling of rationing was the order of the day whether really needed or not.

Reply to
dpb

Yabbut, as goes CA, so goes the USA... Got "spare change" signs?

I (heart) the Onion.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

(delurking) Always enjoy your posts, Mr. McDuffee. But this is the first time in many years I've seen you misspell a word. Palliative. No offense meant. (relurking)

Reply to
Garrett Fulton

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