Some rain

Got to the oasis this morning to find .63" rain in the rain gauge from last night and the night before. The only runoff was in the upper settling pond. It lacked about a foot of filling up. And since I wasn't here when it happened, a foot of that was lost. Still a nice bit of water, but I decided not to haul my heavy 2" pump and heavy hoses to extract it quickly. I reasoned that it wasn't enough to save the oasis if we don't get a monsoon this summer, and if we do get one, the water will be a drop in the bucket.

Instead, I set about pumping it out with my little pump and garden hoses. I hooked it up to my watering system so it goes into the stucco tank* where I can use it if I need it. I had been putting water in there from my new above ground tank. Glad to not have to do that, for a while anyway. Never, would be good.

Since my watering system has two hoses, I could close the one not hooked to the pump, but decided to give the trees a good soaking instead. They've endured a lot and deserve the boost. Notice the soapberry thicket in the background of the above photo. They're getting a good soaking too. The thicket below the dam is only getting what entered there during the rain... for now. More rain forecast.

Coming from town this morning the ditches were brimming with runoff until I got about 20 miles from the oasis.

Things are looking much better with the moisture, cooler temps, and no recent bear visits.

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* Normally, the pump installed in the stucco tank feeds my two hoses. I put a little portable pump into the settling pond and attached it to one of my two watering hoses. So now the water is going backwards through the pump in the stucco tank and also out the second hose. If the pump had a check valve in it, that wouldn't be possible.