It’s great to get some rain. Typical of summer thundershowers, it hasn’t been everywhere and hasn’t been constant. But where it has hit, it’s been significant.
I had nearly a half-inch in about 20 minutes the other day at my house, and then the sun came out. It caught me completely by surprise — car windows down, house windows open, and about 20 acres of hay mowed that morning.
The hay is soaked. It will get raked up so it can dry, and get rained on again, and raked and dried again. It’s not a total loss, but it doesn’t do it any good to get soaked and raked over and over again.
Still, the moisture is welcome. The upper Provo River has basically died. The average flow for July 1, based on 61 years of data, should be 378 cubic feet per second.
Today, with the benefit of a deluge upstream, it bumped up to a whopping 90 cubic feet before settling back to 85. And of that 85, about 10 percent is releases from the Uinta reservoirs rather than natural flow.
The snowpack was pretty normal this winter, even a bit above average on some measurements. But it melted in late April and early May, more or less a month early. Reservoirs filled, but the river is dry.
The river flows now are at August levels, so the whole season shifted by a month. Except for the temperatures, which remained on schedule with another freeze on summer solstice.
It’s not exactly Oklahoma in the 1930s, but things are plenty dry and dusty. The rain is great, and soggy hay is part of the game. The prospects of a second cutting are all but gone with the river dried up.
The Provo River is down to the earliest water right priority, and even the first class rights are cut back to 60% of their normal flow. Anything else has to come from reservoir storage.
So the farms will be looking burned and crispy for the rest of the season. Have you ever seen a brown golf course? Somehow, golf courses never have to reduce their water use. And thanks to our Legislature, private golf course don’t even have to report their water use to the state water rights people.
I see the state water cops about as often as I see my dog. They are at every headgate all the time. Maybe I should cut a putting green into the hay field and tell them I’m a private golf course, so my water use doesn’t count.
The only conclusion is that more state legislators belong to private golf clubs than grow hay.
But the rain falls where it falls, on the golf courses and hay fields and outdoor weddings alike, and nobody is measuring the rain that brought my yard back to life, or greened up the meadow again. That came from the sky and never passed through the measuring weirs to be deducted from my reservoir allotment like cash coming out of a bank account.
The ground was so dry it soaked right in instead of running off. A half-inch of rain got slurped up so fast it barely puddled up on my road. But a day later, there are signs of life in my yard.
Aside from the hay, the timing of the rain was great. I had my house painted, and they finished up a couple of days before it hit.
The last time the house was painted, a long time ago, I did it myself. I rented the big man lift (which is very fun to drive) so I could reach the top and spent a week or so getting it done.
I considered doing it again, but decided to hire a contractor instead. After watching them work at it, I’m sure that was the right decision. The house looks good. I didn’t change colors, so it doesn’t look all that different.
The impact on the bank account is considerably greater than the impact looking at the house. Oddly, after spending that kind of money, the most exciting thing is the replacement weather stripping on the doors. They function like new. If I’d known that $50 in replacement weather stripping could have done that, I might have skipped the rest of the bill and let the paint peel.
While they were at it, I asked them to give me a bid on painting the 90-year old dairy barn. They walked around it a couple of times, poking at layer after layer of old paint and pieces of siding that need to be re-nailed if not completely replaced.
Their conclusion was that the old paint had become structural at this point. They weren’t willing to even guess at a price or consider doing it.
Repairing the siding on one wall was in the plan. That became a lot more difficult when the sawmill in Kamas burned down. Finding rough-cut lumber that matches what’s on there is difficult. It’s beautiful, knot-free 12-inch boards that mostly don’t exist anymore. Retail lumber yards don’t carry it.
The local mill could have matched it, but they aren’t up and running yet. So I guess the barn waits another year or two. The rain didn’t seem to have washed any of the old paint off it.
Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.