Homestead mailing list

[Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>]

SISU! wrote:

> Bill Jones wrote:
> you only have to step over the Oregon border into California into Del
>  
>
> > > Norte and Humboldt Counties or travel west of you to the Coos Bay
> > > area or northwest to get plenty of rain year round.  Certainly not
> > > 500 miles away.
> > >
> > >      
>
>  
>
> > This is a dream.  There's no rain happening "year 'round" in Coos
> > Bay. The stats are online.  South of here it's only drier.
> >    
>
> I don't think there's anyplace in the continental US that gets
> consistent rain year round.  It's up to us to manage rainwater
> collection during the rainy season(s) to make up for the dry seasons.
>
>  
>
> > There's no water from snowmelt at my place, nor anywhere in the Coast
> > Range.
> >    
>
> I've seen the Coast Range in May.  I've crossed it several years going
> to my Dad's place in Astoria.  I driven down the coast and looked to the
> east. There was snow on the peaks.  Why is there no snowmelt?  I find
> this hard to believe.
> If I recall from the kudzu discussion, you get about 40 inches of rain a
> year...that seems like plenty to me, certainly more than places like on
> the Front Range of Colorado get.  Also, aren't there natural springs in
> the Coast Range?  I just don't see how you can say this...certainly, the
> Hoh River in Washington state is supplied by snow and glacial melt, and
> Mt. Olympus is in the Coast Range, is it not?
> For it to be as dry as you describe it, it looked awful green to me, so
> water is coming from somewhere,,,,maybe fog, maybe springs if not snowmelt.
>
> Bill, you seem to not like the climate of where you live.  Perhaps you
> are in a drier microclime than your surrounding area, but certainly you
> knew this before you set up a homestead there?
>
>  
Oh, goodness no.  Summer drought is just the reality out west.  It's 
summer rain that freaks me out.  The drought is just the main reason why 
you can't necessarily set up a pasture anywhere here and succeed.  I 
admit that I didn't know it was quite so dry here, nor that this place 
would be the only one to stay green in the vicinity, so I lucked out.

Northern Oregon is better, and Washington even more so, of course, but 
that runs out fast south of the Willamette Valley.  South of that the 
brown hills look just like Livermore (until today's blessed rainfall).

I wish that the weather service was still labeling those isohyets.  Even 
with no labels, if it were July I could show you that the _zero_ 
rainfall isohyet roughly outlines the combined territory of California 
and Nevada.

May is still early, for it's slow to warm here in spring, so the hills 
are still covered in snow.  In order for snow to provide water all 
summer, it has to thick enough and high up enough to provide water all 
summer.  I think that is true of Mount Olympus per se (almost in Canada).

I'm fascinated by the weather too, but if anything I hoped to have a 
discussion on the special value of sylviculture to dry regions.

Bill
S. Oregon coast