Someone forgot to tell Mother Nature that this is supposed to be a La Niña weather year.  You know - drought conditions for the West.

Digger and Tractors sitting idle this morning after night of heavy rain

It rained again last night and this morning.  Heavy.  Added over 1.25 more inches as of this morning.  The rainfall total is over 500% of normal - breaking the all time record for the Month of December - and that all happened in the last 12 days.  I would not be surprised if we matched the average annual rainfall in that period of time.  We were getting close before last night.

Wanted to start digging this field today but used 4 pumps to drain it instead.

One of four 4" pumps draining the field

Needless to say harvest has been slowed.  The main rain event which hit us starting Friday 12/17 kept us pumping fields for a number of days.  But we were back digging by Thursday 12/23 with relatively decent conditions - a little sloppy at the low ends of the fields where the diggers tear the ground up turning.  The trees came out clean - the water penetration was not sufficient to turn the soil to mud at the root level.  We dug full bore 12/24, took Christmas off (and it rained a bit) and dug Sunday through Tuesday at a fast pace.

But last night we got clobbered again.  The soil is no longer thirsty and the fields will be slower to dry out.  When a field is chewed up by the diggers, the water does not run off to the ends but sits and soaks.  This makes for a most difficult quagmire to dig in when you go back to complete the field.  When a field is not touched by a digger, it drains well and we can get back to it faster.  We have almost all the edible fruits out of the ground with a few exceptions for late dormancy items.  We have two fields of shades and ornamentals untouched by diggers which will be the first to tackle when dry enough tomorrow or Friday.

Yesterday we finished digging the grapes off this field while it was dry.  Digger and tractor ruts capture the overnight rain water and the field will not drain. Where it was dug becomes a muddy mess so you do not want to have to go back and dig near there again.  What we have left to dig does not have this problem - we planned it that way from experience.

Harvested trees happily healed into sand.  They like this weather.

Delivery Delay

Our goal was to have trucks on the road delivering Monday 1/3.  It will not happen.  I am hoping we can still be delivering by Monday 1/10 - a week late.  I apologize to you for any inconvenience this may cause.  Trust me - I want the trees in your hands more than you do so you can have the most amount of time to sell them.  I've read about the legal term "Acts of God" but figured our tame valley would be immune.  I think this qualifies.

UPDATE

Heard the shouts from the front of the office to come see the rainbow.  (Yep it kept on raining today).  We have an old antique digger on the corner of our office property which is what you see below the rainbow. (Wish the power poles and lines were not there for a better photo!)  I saw a full very bright double rainbow and others said it was a triple rainbow a few minutes before.

There is a Biblical precedence about the rainbow being a promise after the flood.  Does this mean...?

Drove around before dark.  Found it humorous that a flock of seagulls mistook our flooded (but thankfully empty) field for the ocean.  They missed it by about 150 miles.

Seagulls mistaking our open land for the ocean

At 4:30 today: here is the same field that was pumped in the photo above - after a day of rain and pumping. The only water is sitting at the ends and sides in the tractor ruts.  Rows are clear.  We moved the digger here tonight to attempt to start digging it in the morning.  I have my doubts...but we will try.  If not, will dig on Friday.

More fun and mud to come.

Ron Ludekens December 29, 2010