We've been having rain every day for about the same amount of time that you have, but we're not over the drought yet. It hasn't been raining all day long in our area so the water table is still low. DD works 7 miles from my house and it rains there more than it does at my house. Seems the rain stops just before it gets to the curve south of our house. @:) DH's little water hole is full but the jungle isn't flooded. When the jungle is flooded and there's standing water in the 'sunken garden' then we know we've had enough rain. I know I keep talking about our jungle....should post a picture of it so you'd know what I'm talking about. Daytona Raceway was flooded yesterday....don't know about any races except for the Indy 500 today. Sharon

Here in GA it has been raining cats and dogs but it is starting to look like Maui here as Trail said so lush and 3D green. I still walk/run rain or shine. The last two times out I got so wet I could wring out my hair and clothes and stupid me had mascara on and it got in my eyes and I could hardly see where I was going. Two people stopped and asked if I wanted a ride, I mean it was coming down in sheets. But I couldn't dare get in their car soaking wet. But I will go again tomorrow if it is still raining. The only time I get a little freaked out is if it is lightning too. But the rain this time doesn't have lightning, it's soft and warm rain, but I think I will leave the makeup off, my eyes are still burning!!! I am sorry that all of the 4th of July festivities got canceled yesterday and all the fun outdoor activities at the lake. It is making summer seem kind of short! Otherwise, I have been doing lots of baking with the dogs, husband has been working in Wyoming for the past week but home now, yea!

Well, now you’ve done it, MiGreenThumb (Z5b S.Michigan/Sunset 41) Elevation: 1,029 feet -- started talking about water around a Californian! As a 6th generation Northern Californian who has been around a while, I can assure you that availability of fresh water here has always been dicey, even many decades back when there was only a small fraction of the current population and even in places, like my family's homesteaded ranches in Mendocino County, where there were hardly any people (and still aren't). There's an old saying, "Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting" and there's no truer statement about water in California than that, whether 100 years ago or today. Because there is no rain (and I mean zero) between April and maybe mid-October or even later (not until December/January some years), except for occasional summer thunderstorms in the Sierras, access to a year-round supply of water here has always been critical, much contested, and governed by water rights laws that date back to 1850, when California first became a state (surface waters, at least – underground sources via wells have only recently come under some regulation). The infrastructure and laws around surface water appropriation and rights in California are complex, arcane, steeped in custom and history, and aren't even well-understood by most current Californians (the great majority of whom were born elsewhere) much less folks living outside of California. Surface water can’t be stored or used by anyone in California unless they hold the specific right to that water – be they municipalities, individual land owners, agricultural irrigation districts, whoever. Rights that allow beneficial use of such can be bought and sold, but nobody can own water itself. There are also differing priorities among established rights for surface water; rights originating prior to 1914, for example, tend to have highest priority and get first use of a given source, while later rights with successively lesser priorities get what's left, which is likely to be nothing in drought years. In the article you link, the author (who was born in Chicago, by the way) mentions only the State Water Project, which provides just part (about 12%) of California’s water supply. Overall, via dams and pumping, around 50% of all precipitation that falls in CA is captured, 75% of which falls in the northern half of the state, even though 80% is used in the southern half of the state, so massive amounts of water are transported south, mainly via canals. Roughly 80% of captured water goes to irrigation and other ag uses (at only a fraction of its actual cost, with taxpayers in general heavily subsidizing ag users) and no more than 15% of the total goes to municipal or residential use, where users pay around 10x more for the same water (an opportunity not lost on ag users, who can, and do, sell their cheap water rights at a premium to municipalities with shortages for handsome profits). Given that agriculture currently contributes only about 1 to 2% of the state’s total economic output, this situation is becoming a real head-scratcher and will likely change as the political influences of ag interests, once so dominant in the state, continue to wane. In any case, soils on land that is irrigated in arid climates eventually and inevitably become toxic and useless for farming due to salinization and saturation (remember the fate of ancient Mesopotamia and its Fertile Crescent?), something already starting to happen in California’s Central Valley, where an increasing amount of cropland is being permanently fallowed for these reasons. Bottom line is that water supply infrastructure in California does need to be updated, but the emphasis should first focus on re-allocating current supplies, as the amount being withheld and withdrawn from natural systems is already excessive, something that has been obvious to local ecologists, at least, for a long time. Because Jackie lives fairly distant from the infrastructure that serves ag users, though, her area does need to increase local storage or sources. No worries about Great Lakes water being shipped here, either – the cost and technology to move it over or around two major mountain ranges would be prohibitive – would likely be vastly more cost-effective to subsidize moving Californians back to there ;-).

Good luck to you all, folks, and, Jackie, congratulations! We had a good rain a couple of days ago, perhaps 2cm in our area, instantly absorbed by the dry ground. I hope it rained more higher up in the mountains--a friend who lives in that direction reported storms in the afternoon before it began raining here--and fed the reservoir, which is just about dry. The rain we've gotten in the past two months, though not enough evidently to recharge the aquifers, has kept the plants watered, so that the ones that survived the summer are now doing reasonably well. Some are thriving: I was checking out the old part of the big garden, and discovered that the Buddleia alternifolia that has sat still for a good decade, finally has launched into growth, while its neighboring shrubs were also hearty. I'm full of plans for the garden, stymied and stifled by two realities: one, the still-dry ground, the other, the limitations of my own strength and energy. Still, it's good to dream. I hope that bart bart also got rain. Forecast is for more rain this coming weekend. I hope so, and for the likewise predicted falling temperatures. It's still quite warm during the day, and miserably buggy.