Steve Tilford

I saw this Op-Ed a few days ago from a senior water scientist at the NASA jet Propulsion Lab who says that there is about one year of water left in the water storage system in California right now.

I knew that it has been a slim year for snow there, but didn’t realize January was the least amount of precipitation that has been recorded in California since they started keeping record in 1895.

This is bad. I know this is also the situation in many areas of Texas. Last time I rode by Lake Travis, near Austin, the docks were hanging vertical like ladders, not even close to touching any water.

We’ve been pulling water out of the Ogallala Aquifer, here in the midwest, way too fast too. 32% of the depletion of the aquifer during the 20th century happened in 7 recent years. We’re draining it at record pace, using the water for agriculture, of course, but also for oil and coal extraction.

We’re not in such a dire state as they are in California, but we have our heads as buried in the sand as they do.

It think it is a given that the average citizen, especially in California, is very concerned about having a ample supply of clean water. We are willing to do just about anything to assure that.

In California, they haven’t even established mandatory water rationing in most of the state. With less than a years worth of stored water available and they aren’t doing this? It is completely crazy.

This isn’t a political issue. It is an issue for everyone. We need to figure out, throughout the United States, how to use our water wisely. Maybe we should be building a ton more water pipelines instead of fighting about oil pipelines like Keystone. I don’t know the answer.

I do know that our country can be very resilient and cooperative when we feel it’s in everyone’s best interest. We seem to be at odds over a lot of things right now. This is a pretty simple situation. We are running out of water where a lot of Americans call home. There is very little water left, we need to use it more wisely. And we need to address the problem very soon.

Jay Famiglietti, the author of the LA Times Op-Ed said it in a basic way – We’re not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we’re losing the creek too.

Mono Lake, outside Mammoth Lakes, CA. This is a picture for 2013. I went by this lake, everytime I've been to Mammoth, for years and years. This is so sad.

Mono Lake, outside Mammoth Lakes, CA. This is a picture from 2013. I gone by this lake, everytime I’ve been to Mammoth, for years and years. This is so sad.

Today is just that day, the 17th of March. I couldn’t believe it, but I didn’t know whether it was the 10th or the 17th today when I looked at the calendar. Shows you were my mind is.

I didn’t really know what Saint Patrick’s Day was all about, so I looked it up. Wiki says-Saint Patrick’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick (Irish: Lá Fhéile Pádraig, “the Day of the Festival of Patrick”), is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (c. AD 385–461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland.

Anyway, we’re driving Bromont back over to K-State to have another chest x-ray and maybe scope his throat. He still coughs a ton and is not really eating much at all. If he not going to be of this world very long, I want him to be as comfortable as possible. I didn’t plan on taking him back and forth to the vet on a weekly basis, but it seems right as of now.

I’m going to be interested in seeing how much of the Flint Hills they have actually burned since I did the drive a couple weeks ago. The air has seemed pretty smokey, but not smokey enough to make me think they are mostly done. Everything they burn around Topeka and Lawrence seems to be ditches and fence lines, plus rural folks just burning their yards. I’m pretty sure that isn’t what burning is all about, but people get burn happy this time of the year.

I’ve been doing the evening rides from our house at 5:30 when I’m not sick. Everyone seems to be going pretty good, plus I’m behind, so it makes the riding hard. Yesterday we did 50 miles with a 21 mph average, with the wind blowing pretty constantly over 20mph. I’m not sleeping enough to be recovering properly, but it is what it is.

Yesterday I dug up the compost pile and put it in the garden. I haven’t been taking good enough care of the compost pile, so I pretty much started over from scratch, layering it again and watering it.

Since I’m feeling so shitty riding, I figure I should try to do some other things to get my body back to snuff. The problem is that when I’m riding badly and have no energy, I am pretty pitiful doing any manual labors. I only did it for a couple hours, but was pretty beat before the ride. I didn’t actually feel all that bad riding, after the first hour. I don’t know what my body does to get to that point, but I like it. It must somehow have an ability to readjust itself and get performing as efficiently as possible.

I’m allergic to Kansas this time of the year. I’m not sure if it is the constant shitty air or just spring allergies, but I wake up each day like I didn’t really sleep. I haven’t been sleeping all that much, but you know what I mean. Feeling rundown down isn’t motivating, but I’ve experienced it before, so I’ll just plod on.

I’ve been riding out to the races on the weekends, not racing, but riding there and back. Both Saturday’s and Sunday’s races are about a 25 mile ride each way from my house, so I end up with just about 50 miles each day. Adding the 50 miles for the evening rides, I am getting in enough miles to sustain, but not enough to be good. I’m feeling behind already, not having really done any racing on the road.

Did you see the finish results of the MTB race in Bonelli Park, LA, last weekend. Guess the MTB weather protocol kicked in and they had to cut a lap off the men’s race. Racing over 1:30 hours on a MTB would have been too far. Man, do things change.

Anyway, there were 27 men listed on the results and 38 women. Todd Wells was the best US finisher, 12th. Only two US guys in the top 15, out of 27. I don’t have any idea what that is, but it shows how pitiful that sport is doing on the UCI level. I’d like to see how many riders started. You’d think they would put everyone’s name down that competed, like real results, but that might not of been the case. Whatever the case, US MTB racing, on an international level, has a lot of catching up to do.

Okay, I need to get going. We have an early appointment for Bromont at K-State.