Thunderation!

A building thunderhead at 3:30 PM means we could have a big light show tonight. Several years ago a huge cell of thunderclouds built up in the afternoon over the town of Coalinga. It traveled across the state in a straight line and finally ended its life in Mariposa, 90 miles (145 km) later. We watched it approach, pass over our house, and head northward. It produced a show that entertained and lasted for a couple of hours. Akela, our white dog, spent the entire time under Grandma’s bed. Too bad she missed the show.

In today’s San Francisco Chronicle was an article saying that we now have 90% of the entire rain season’s worth of precipitation. A good sign, but we will need much more to overcome the deficit of the last three years’ drought. We will need a good snowpack and some occasional thunderstorms this summer to get through our season at the high ranch on hydroelectric power. Backup diesel, while a life-saver, is awfully expensive and just plain stinks. We need to figure out how to use horse manure and kitchen waste to make methane. It would be good to use the excess hydro power, probably 1400 kilowatt hours a day, to make hydrogen. Heat from the hot spring meadow could run something, too.

Any ideas?