Last year was the El Niño year. The farm is thoroughly soaked and the nursery just texted me wanting me to take delivery of the first spring planting. There is nothing we can do in the fields until the ground dries out enough to start cultivating. So if you have been praying for rain, thank you, time to turn down the volume. 

There is no normal California weather, so the old California farmers around here tell me. Just lots of variation. Our Lake Berryessa is ready to safely go over the spillway. There are other kinds of reservoirs and ours is optimal with three years supply in it. Most reservoirs are primarily flood control with only enough catchment and storage for one or two years only. 

We do have a well and it’s aquifer is filled with regulated releases from our dam for salmon flows. So in many ways we are sitting pretty. We have had no restrictions during the drought. 

That brown water, full of erodible soil you see in the Bay is not something to be happy about. What we need is for California to soak up and rehydrate itself that is called permaculture.