Although not as spectacular as the drought in the mid west, we too have been having it pretty dry. It has now got to 40 days and nights without a drop falling from the sky. Needless to say with our own well and a garden I have been watering every day, all day to keep the beds going, bugger the lawns! Unfortunately we are on fluvioglacial outflow overlying boulder clay. To the uninitiated that is one very, very thirsty soil that dries out all too quickly. Good for bulbs and that’s about it without constant adding of humus and water.
Well then! Yesterday being the beginning of our Bank Holiday (and sod all happening until Tuesday) what happens, yes, the well pump becomes incandescent and stops dead. American houses do not have holding tanks. No well pumping, no water, just like that, not one bleeding drop. As luck would happen a friend was visiting, he is the water man of the Nooksack tribe. So he and spousal unit set out to investigate. The well is so old and solidly built they could not get it apart. Nothing to be done until Tuesday then! Mass planning how to save the greenhouse, veg garden and potted plants, forget washing and showers! Serious panic but only on behalf of plants! Everyone else can drink wine!
Several hours later having organised all and sundry and alternate temporary supplies we were all sitting having a drink and mirabile dictu, the bloody pump roars into life! Spousal unit was nearly trampled to death in my rush to get to the greenhouse to water the tomatoes whilst it was flowing. It is still going, it must have overheated for some reason. We shall limp it along for a few days hopefully til next week and have an expert in pumps come and look at it from one of the dairy companies. Replacing it is not that easy, nearly all the pumps these days are chinese crap which I flat refuse to have in the place.
Trouble is with wells here you just get a bore hole not a real well as I had in Carms. There, when the pump went on the blink you just ripped off the well cover and chucked a bucket on a rope down, good for the arm muscles! It was a beautiful well all brick vaulted and good for throwing bodies down! (Must get in the inhuman and indecent!) For one teensy weensy second there I had real empathy for those that have no water supply in this world! (I must assure the Danish contingent that the sensation went away rather quickly with another glass of wine!)
More on the mid west. The corn crop has now been lost in totality in an area as big as the Benelux countries. Cattle are being sent to slaughter before they starve and next winter’s hay is all but gone already May I suggest that any that have the facility stock up on beef and.chicken. A lot of that feed corn was exported to the EU and Putin will not be willing to make up the losses except at a price. Meat is going to be very expensive come the winter. Unfortunately the third world is going to go very short indeed, if not starve, the only staple that is not in short supply currently is rice. What there is is going to be beyond their purse. Starvation is not a good form of birth control.
The world is now losing crops to drought in some places and an excess of water in others such as the UK this year, none of it bodes very well for humanity at the quantity we have thereof now. I’m sure most of you will remember in your history books of the ‘poxes and murrains’ upon the land in the time of King John? Well that was a time like now of extreme climatic fluctuation and plenty starved to death all over Europe.
None of its very good news, including my well! Great pity we didn’t sell this house earlier in the year! I just bloody knew it was time to move on.
Boadicea's Chariot 
I forgot to add a rather amusing detail. there is a 24 hour on call service for pumps by the dairy company.
But not for humans!
Only available for cows or the excrement thereof!
The humans can go hang! Let’s hear it for the cows!
Glad to see they have their priorities right.
CO: Minnesota, fortunately, has been spared the worst of the drought.
While that is good for Minnesota agriculture, the price of their products commands
now is very good for the local economy, it’s not so good for consumers.
I went to grocer’s Friday and Today and was nearly brought to tears.
Pork is now $5.00 per pound, beef even more so. I’ve started buying Spanish chorizo
as a single ring can last me almost a week. Generally I would say that it was time to go vegetarian,
but even that has gone up. Apples from Aotearoa are now $3.00 a pound. Clementine oranges
are not much better. Even salad is quite dear.
Moving on to California/Nevada things are also serious, though not quite as dire as in the mid-and-lower Plains. California had below-average rainfall, Nevada as well. In a way it was necessary as the previous
winter California nearly flooded and it allowed for excess water to drain away. Some crops did well, blueberries especially. Some did not do quite as well. There was a late frost that wreaked havoc
in the Central Valley and eastern Sierra region, some of the state’s prime agricultural areas.
I’ve also noticed that Nevada’s onion crop was impacted, the price of even basic yellow and white
onions has gone up considerably.
chris, isn’t that the truth, the price of everything is sky high! We can still get pork for about $2.50/lb if you buy in large quantity.
But the veg! Not that I buy a thing except onions of which I cannot grow enough. I have not bought veg since May as I have sufficient. I reckon now that it saves me a good $40/week as we eat fresh veg heavy so to speak. The freezers are bulging!
Dept of silver linings: Danish farmers have had a bumper wheat harvest and are now raking in the proceeds at sky-high prices!
CO, I’m glad you explained the dairy/pump connection – I had visions of you resorting to a milking machine in your well!
It tickled me too janus. We are limping the pump along and it is still with us, just! One can guarantee anything like this is bound to happen over a bank holiday! I have to say that I am extremely grateful to have any water at all, the pump house floor is under water but it is still going and maintaining pressure and still getting to the greenhouse, must preserve the tomatoes at all costs!!
Cows and tomatoes being the order of the day!
Interesting about the Danish farmers, thank god someone is still in business! That is the trouble with farming these days, either boom or bust and not much in between, all down to monoculture rather than the old mixed farming that is no where near as profitable any more.
And therein lies what in my opinion is a huge huge problem.
We too (after good rains this year) should have no problem with short term future harvests. But, the markets set the price, so, although our wheat and corn may be grown just up the road, the price is determined by the ‘international markets.’
Resulting, of course with our staples (bread and maize) prices being in my opinion unrealistically set. Yes, the farmers will have a good year but the poor consumer is once again left sucking the hind tit 😦
Soutie I think the huge profits made are more to be laid at the door of the derivative and futures traders and banks, not the farmers.
But I certainly agree there are going to be difficulties in many places and not just third world countries. The food banks here have probably doubled their rolls of families needing help in the last year. They certainly have right here in our local community.
Soutie, yes! Including Danish consumers!
As far as I can see Aussie farmers are also going to benefit from America’s poor harvest – which, of course, means we too will see price rises.
Môre Janus
Do you have hind tits in Denmark?
I would have thought that by now your Euro thought police would have legislated that all tits have to be of equal value 😉
We had an exceptionally dry winter and it hasn’t rained here since May. The Cave has its own borehole, fortunately,,but the water quality is becoming increasingly poor.
Dry linky
OZ
Morning Mrs. CO. I’ve bin away in the boat for a few days, just back.
It sounds from the symptoms that your water problem may be in the pump house rather than down the well.
The down hole pump will rarely “come back to life” but the pressure switch or tank may become intermittent, make sure the well guy checks that stuff first before pulling 200+ feet of pipe out of the ground.
Living in the swamps I rarely have irrigation problems, but sometimes just for fun I throw a pump in the creek and use that water for the garden, for all but the late summer the water is fresh.
In the mountains it is probable that you have “hard” water. Do you have a water softener in your system? As a careful gardener i am sure you know not to use “softened” water on the garden, the softener leaves measurable salt in the treated water and over time is not good for the plants, I have my outside spigots connected directly to the raw water from the well.
We have almost the opposite situation to your soil conditions, thin topsoil over impervious clay, the topsoil has limited take up of rain and the rest runs off, then it dries quickly so constant light irrigation is needed.
Re: Corn (maize?) harvest, the idiots in D.C. once again folded before the combined farm and industry lobby and 50%+ of the harvest will this year go to ethanol production. All at prices which make the ethanol even more economically unsound. As you say beef farmers are culling herds ahead of the winter to avoid the ever rising feed prices, it will be years before that supply can be turned around.
Grain farmers here in the lowlands have mostly had a pretty good year. They are also playing the futures game, rather than selling into the fall harvest many are building additional storage on the farm and refusing to sell until they see the winter prices, shiny new silos going up all over the place.
Quite right, Soutie! There is no tit discrimination here based on location! However most have now left for Poland where feed is cheaper, allegedly. 😦
LW, yes I’m sure it is in the pumphouse too, not in the bore itself. As I’m sure you already know they always advise to have a well test before buying anywhere on private water, generally the organic/e.coli type thing does the trick. However, knowing a little too much about mining/geology.associated deposits etc and the fact that there are silver mines in the mountain above us I had an inorganic test done too. Didn’t fancy liquid lead and cadmium coming out the taps!
We have a weird melange of rocks up there from the subduction upthrust, but no dolomite or anything to ‘harden’ the water. Pretty well neutral ph, the only minerals are a slightly enhanced sodium content and heavy on the manganese which does not appear to impinge on humanity. The only thing it does is stain the inside of all the loo cisterns black! Somewhat disconcerting! So the dishwasher and washing machine have to be stainless steel not ceramic lined. We don’t process it in any way, use it straight out the well.
Good idea having a sump pump out of the creek. My brother used to have an extraction licence out of the river Otter in Devon for his farm for irrigation of his water meadows. Unfortunately our creek dries to a trickle in the summer just when you want it! So all our irrigation water has to come out of the well. Frankly we have hammered it for nearly ten years here and it was the original pump nearly 40 years old so it doesn’t really owe us anything just surprising it has lasted so long! Just a total bitch going over labour Day!
Yes, agree with your thoughts on ethanol production and the beef supply situation. Round here most people have at least 5 acres and their own locker beef. I never got into that as I have had to to and fro so much to the UK, never thought it fair to leave spousal unit in charge of farm animals when he comes from urban New York and knows sod all about it or what to do! I won’t do chickens because of a pack of coyotes have long lived just above us on the mountain. All our neighbours chickens are under constant siege from them! I have noticed that there are more animals around nowadays, more pigs too. I also note that more people have a vegetable garden than they used to also. I think anyone that can and has the room needs to get a veg patch going. I don’t think any of this is going to go away anytime soon, what with the population explosion and climate change I reckon the era of cheap food has gone not to return.
Oz that is seriously bad news. I gather from the reports that a mild/moderate El Nino winter for 2012 is expected, not sure what that does for Portugal, you might check it out.
PS Interesting about the silos LW. I suppose the farmers too have been shafted by the speculators. Can’t say I blame them. I wonder if they will have a rerun of the Dorchester corn riots of the 1800’s? Does anything ever change? Short answer-no.
Christina, get the chickens…and one of these!
http://www.airsoftsniperrifleshop.com/utg-airsoft-sniper-rifles-u79r.php
What fun! 😀
Wicked, wicked creature!