Dirty Weather

has at long last come to the Bay Area. While this is very welcome from the point of view of bringing more green to the area, it has certainly had the impact of keeping me out of the woods. Most trails are now closed, and its no fun hiking on the mud that you are allowed on. So instead of heading out to explore new trails, I've been at home, doing some medical editing.

Another thing I have been doing lately, which I recommend to all pagan-minded folk in the area to do; is some water engineering in my garden, and planting more herbs. Until now, excess rainwater has simply been washing off into the street, down the drains, and into the bay. San Jose gets its water from pumping groundwater - which it recharges by allowing water from its dams to soak into the water table. I figure that after the drought that we have had, that there should be some way of using all the rainwater we have now, to soak in to the water table. Both on a local level (my garden), and at an area-wide level, it therefore makes sense to hold as much of this water as possible, and to develop our own soakaways to recharge the soil water levels. So this first thing I have been doing, is some contouring of sloping areas, so that they hold water for a while after the rain has stopped, so that it continues to soak in. If this were done by everyone, and particularly by the state, on freeway margins, etc., we could certainly abate flooding in winter, and recharge out water table more.

In addition, I have put a water barrel in place, as a temporary water storage solution. While I havent yet installed some form of pond - the ideal solution for holding winter rain until summer shortages; this can at least hold some water from wetter weeks, when the soil is waterlogged, to drier weeks, when I can empty the barrel allowing it to soak into the soil more efficiently.