Dry

After an unusually dry winter and spring, we seem to be continuing into summer. The last time I mowed clouds of dust rose behind. Everywhere the grass is browning. It isn't turning the lovely golden brown that the hills around Santa Ynez turn during the summer. No, everything just looks and feels parched. We have hoses stretched across the yard in two directions so that we can hand water the garden and berry beds daily, but the perennial beds smattered around the property suffer the same fate as the masses of lawn and fields. In ground sprinklers for the lawn in this part of the world are rare. Thankfully, a taste of rain tends to bring it all right back, but I do wonder if this continues all summer what damage will be done. I remember a few years ago, when visiting, my Father-In-Law voiced his surprise that with so much farmland cultivated, there were very few irrigation systems around. Much of what is in our area are dry land crops, if this weather continues it will be interesting to see how harvests are effected. We are not considered in a drought at this point, and there is some rain in the forecast for next week, but the last several forecasts that showed rain for us ended up quenching North of us. It isn't all bad by any means...being this dry means very few Mosquitos, and that is never bad!