Good Saturday to you all.  Gray and wet again but no snow.  Another day to tie the record for number of snow-free days in a year.

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Well, here it is--Sunday.  And we have now tied the record for snow-free days and it looks very likely that we will break the record.  I told Mom this morning that you could tell the temperature was no where near cold enough for snow by looking at the kale.  It is standing up straight.  If the temp was below 30 it would look a bit wilted.  We are getting rain now.

As you cam see I haven't found much to comment on lately.  I read a lot in politics and economics and both have been pretty inane.  What can you say after you have already said how idiotic the whole mess really is?  I could have gone into a coma last summer before the election and waking now I wouldn't know any time had passed.  I think I have to change my reading.  Have to give that some thought.

Coyote Gulch has a post concerning water wars in the Missouri River-southern Mississippi River basins.  It follows on another article in Coyote Gulch yesterday (sorry--didn't keep the link) which described a Horsetooth Reservoir just west of Ft. Collins, Colorado, which is at 40% normal.  I think I have noted before that I lived in Ft. Collins for about fifteen years between the late 70s and early 90s.  I never saw the water level that low.  The interesting part of today's article is the competing interests pressing either for or against a release of water from Missouri reservoirs already at low levels:  shippers how move goods up and down the Mississippi vs. farmers in the northern Missouri basin who depend on the river to grow the crops (much of which is shipped down the Mississippi) vs. sports fishermen vs. cities who need to tap the river for drinking (and other uses) vs. conservationists who want to conserve as much as possible of the natural environment (and it isn't just the birds and fish that depend on that environment--it is us also).

The Daily Gazette of Schenectady, N.Y., posted this story which puts and interesting spin on natural disaster damage.  Think Superstorm Sandy caused the most economic damage this year?  Think again!!  The continuing drought beat her numbers by several times.  And NOAA expects the drought to intensify in most affected areas in 2013.