We definitely get less snow than we used to, and dramatically less than in most of the 20th century, because I’ve seen the pictures on display down at the town grocery store (and museum). In the early 1990s we averaged a significant snowfall every two weeks from late December through mid-March. But rainfall averages out. Some years – like this year – it’s dry as a bone, the spring silts up quickly. Other years – like last year – it rains nearly an inch a day, you can count on it. I installed rain barrels this year to water the garden, but there hasn’t been enough rain to fill them. And the crops don’t need watering if they’re getting an inch a day, so I’m slowly but surely figuring out that this may be a pointless (though well engineered) system.

Water is always an issue, a most precious resource that shouldn’t be wasted in the best of times. I won’t buy it in a bottle at the store (mine is much better), but I’ll guard and develop what I have. We’ve plans for a series of small trout ponds on the creek (good grade) and a water turbine to power the pump (and whatever else it can supply). Sigh… always a work in progress!

I just don’t know.

I’m stuck at “make sure to live where the aquifirs still have water and where there are still some trees.” Despite all our climate modeling, I’m not sure we really know what’s going to happen, which leaves all of us vulnerable.

But at least we’re trying.