Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Describing current New Mexico drought conditions is a bit of a puzzle. Out in my Albuquerque garden this morning, I was pulling weeds easily out of damp soil, and the plants, with no supplemental water, are going bonkers. Yet I’ve been writing stories about surface water supply problems. What gives?
No Plagues Today Originally uploaded by Malcolm Tredinnick. Malcolm caught this. Click through if you can’t read the fine print.
Here in the arid west, one of the real pressing questions is the effect of reclaimed water on fairways and especially putting greens: Although deficit irrigating can be practiced for short periods, adequate LFs are essential for the long-term success of golf courses irrigated with reuse water. Good to know.
Big Toe Monitoring Birds Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. Inkstain Staff Ornithologist Big Toe spotted the first hummingbird of spring yesterday (May 1), so I had him go back through the records of first hummingbird sightings at Inkstain World Headquarters. This sighting appears to be substantially later than in 2004 (April 20) and 2005 (April 16). …
Steve Brügge’s eighth graders have done their annual chemistry cartoons:
From Amazon: We’ve noticed that customers who have expressed interest in Prediction: Science, Decision Making, and the Future of Nature by Orrin H. Pilkey have also ordered The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America by H. Bruce Franklin.
On California’s dismal snowpack, from the Chron: The water content of the Sierra Nevada snowpack is at its lowest level in nearly 20 years — less than 40 percent of usual for this time of year, state water officials say. The size of the snowpack — the source for most of the state’s drinking water …
New Mexico and Colorado are about to enter Rio Grande Compact Article VII restrictions. That means Elephant Butte, the big reservoir down south, is too low, and we’re prohibited from upstream storage. The meat: In flirting with Rio Grande Compact restrictions, New Mexico finds itself in what has become a familiar situation, with the state’s …