Without pausing to bring us our essential yearly quota of rainfall, summer at the ranch has come and gone, and we've slid into fall with a landscape that is already sere and yellowed. I don't have any official figures, but the artificial reservoirs surrounding San Miguel appear to be shrinking, instead of bursting and even flooding …
Continue reading Then summer left us, without even saying adiós
According to our recently installed rooftop weather station, during the past two weeks we've received exactly four and a half inches of rain, an auspicious kick-off for our rainy season, which, if all goes well, should bring us about 25 inches of precipitation when it ends four months from now.The total could vary, of course, …
We haven't had any significant rain here for months, and that, in addition to a heat wave for the past couple of weeks, is making me doubt my own propaganda about San Miguel having the "perfect climate."It's been pretty miserable indeed, temperatures up in the low 90s. Not Baton Rouge, Houston or Phoenix miserable, mind …
Continue reading What is this? Summer, spring, early rains or what?
I've always believed in the power of the written word but I had no idea. Since posting my yearly epistle a week ago about the lack of rain, we've had an inch of precipitation over two nights.Late Tuesday afternoon the southeast skies had darkened—auspiciously or ominously depending on one's point of view—and lightning sliced the …
Continue reading Let it rain. Let it . . . Hey, it's raining!
El Rancho Santa Clara 