as July ends

     BK photo.  Click image for full photo.

On the threshold of August, summer fires in California.  One just north of here in Six Rivers National Forest halted traffic on the main road to there for a day or so but was expected to be contained by Monday.  Two larger fires are burning to our south: in the Sacramento area and near Yosemite.  As elsewhere, they are burning hotter and faster because of drought-dried vegetation.

With requests to voluntarily cut back on water use apparently ineffective, California will begin mandatory restrictions on home water use on August 1.  The announced guidelines are fairly limited (don't water down your driveway etc.) but each municipality is supposed to develop its own rules.  We haven't been notified of ours yet.

So here on the North Coast, where some maps show the least effect predicted from the climate crisis of anywhere in the states, we're still looking at possibly big effects of small changes.  Though not yet part of the media buzz, there's knowledgeable talk of a rodent population explosion, along with some insects, possibly due to the mild winter.

By the National Weather Service stats, we've have above normal temps (2-3F) and below average precip (which usually isn't much) for June and July.  I don't have stats on pollen but we're really feeling it more, so I assume it's been consistently higher, a consequence of both those weather factors.  So hay fever symptoms are more on than off this summer.

So far our summer crops still seem abundant.  We're enjoying the high season for strawberries right at the moment, mostly from the hotter areas to the east.  It's possible to grow tomatoes in Arcata now, though we have only one plant with just a few baby tomatoes.  But the smell of the tomato vine on my fingers reminds me of August in PA, when the tomato and pepper crops were coming in, and fried plates of same were frequent.

And there's this butterfly, which looks to be an Oregon Swallowtail.  We don't get many butterflies here, maybe nobody does.  But there's been a couple around this month.

BK photo.  copyright William Kowinski 2014