seasonality

The weather this fall and early winter have been great for cycling, but terrifyingly dry from a wine-growing point of view. The rainfall is the lowest ever recorded for most California locations. A persistent ridge of high pressure over the Great Basin lead to this and it now seems it has finally broken as we have had two rains in the last five days. I am ever the optimist when it comes to farming, but I doubt very much that we will reach even half of normal rainfall. As the two prior winters were on the dry side of average as well we've got quite a bit of salt built up in the root zone from irrigation. This will likely not get flushed out this spring. A great concern as well is whether or not the aquifer that we depend on for irrigation will hold up through the late summer and fall period. My transition to cycle commuter could not have been easier so far this year. A few cold mornings was all I've had to deal with the last three months. This morning it was just starting to drizzle in town at 7:00 when I started out, and by the time I reached the winery the road was dry. I essentially just out ran the storm. Within a few minutes of arriving it began to rain in earnest and it has been raining lightly and steadily all day. Sometime in the next hour or so I'm going to head home. It looks to be a wet one. It is good to keep Rule #9 in mind, "If you are out riding in bad weather it means you are a badass, period." while it is not one of my top priorities to be a badass, I will take credit where due.