Fair warning - you might want to file this blog post under the category, "Aren't Ranchers Ever Happy?!" I'll admit - last year, I was worried about warm temperatures, lack of soil moisture, and dried-up stock ponds here in the Sierra Foothills. We'd had the driest January-March ever recorded.
Looking back at more than 20 years of precipitation data I've collected since my family moved to Auburn, I can't say that we've ever had an average year that is, we've never had exactly 32.68 inches of rain. Some years, like 2016-17, we measure quite a bit more than average (62.
The Nevada-Placer-Yuba Disaster Livestock Access Pass Program operated for its second year in 2022. This program, available to commercial livestock producers in the three counties, is the first (and so far, only) multi-county program in California.
After several multi-year droughts over the last decade, I find myself puzzled by the moisture that's been falling from the sky here in Auburn this winter! I find myself even more puzzled by the saturated state of our foothill soils! Over the last several weeks, as I've driven Highway 49 between Aubu...
