Diary 12/2

Yeah, it's wet.  We're famous for that here in Oregon.  .7 inches overnight and another .3 inches out there already today.  Not like Georgia, but still wet.  The creek is getting noisier.  I can see a slice of it now that the leaves are off the trees between me here on the hill and the water moving down there.  Still, with an inch of rain melting the snow up to 4500 feet, the creek is still pretty well behaved, so the trees and the soil are taking a good amount of this rain in.  Good sized Douglas Fir trees are able to store 700 gallons of water.  That is where they get the term "watershed" in that the water is stored to release later.  The more foliage and soil web, the better storage.  After the forest fire in '02, the water came down the creeks so fast because there was no longer anything to hold it back.  Now, with some replanting and natural succession of new plants, the water is slowing down and less fluctuating.