A little bit about a lot of things:

• Craziness continues.....while portions of the Midwest are under water in flooding that has devastated some cities and flooded out corn crops, many West Side farmers are trying to figure out how they are going to manage their limited irrigation supply to nurse their crops through the hot summer months ahead.

Growers and industry officials have told us that the recent developments regarding local water issues – with limits as to how much irrigation water can be accessed during the peak demand months of June, July and August – are unprecedented.

Those restrictions are very bad news for farmers, and bad news for the farmers is bad news for communities that rely on agriculture as the backbone of their economy. That is very much the case in the San Joaquin Valley, where each dollar produced by agriculture cycles through the economy several times over, supporting commerce and generating jobs.

Water is the lifeblood of agriculture, and for too many growers this year that water is in short supply.

In federal water districts such as Del Puerto, a long finger of a district which follows the Delta-Mendota/Interstate 5 corridor on the West Side, growers face a dual challenge: They learned in early June that their federal water allocation has been reduced from 45 percent to 40 percent of the full contracted amount and, more importantly, they can draw only a portion of their alloted water during the peak growing season.

The remainder won’t be available until September....long after that water will be needed most.

In one of the many injustices surrounding the situation, many growers had already made their plans based on the 45 percent water forecast. Some had planted crops they may no longer be able to irrigate.

Growers in the Central California Irrigation District will face a restricted supply as well, but will have more water to work with than their federal district neighbors during the summer months. “Difficult but manageable” is how a CCID official termed the situation.

Being the resourceful lot that they are, irrigation districts and farmers will make the most of the cards they are dealt – but California’s drought is very much going to be felt in local fields, orchards and communities.

Along with the drought, environmental concerns and court-ordered restrictions on pumping water through the delta have made the water situation only more challenging.

We’re hopeful that Gov. Schwarzenegger’s emergency declaration will help move some additional water  to Central Valley farmers, but only time will tell if any relief materializes.

Any help would be welcome to those farmers who are facing a long, hot and all-too-dry summer of 2008.

• On a more positive ag-related note, we salute our area’s dairy producers and industry with a special section published inside this newspaper. Dairy has been as part of the West Side ag landscape, well, for as long as there has been a West Side ag  landscape.

From the dairy producers to the trucking firms to the creameries, the dairy industry represents a powerful economic engine in its own right.

Dairy faces its own challenges as well, without a doubt, but the men and women who are the backbone of the industry are amazingly resilient as they overcome one challenge after another.

I invariably learn a great deal when I visit with dairy producers and industry officials, and this year was no different. And without fail, I come away with a renewed respect for the commitment it takes to operate a dairy.....which in many cases is more a way of life than a job.

As consumers, we enjoy the delicious and nutritious fruits of their labor in many forms, from a cold glass of milk to a juicy cheeseburger to a milk shake or a bowl of ice cream.

For that, we can thank the many hard-working people who make up the California dairy industry.

• The promise of prosperity is at my fingertips.....at least according to the email bin.

I recently realized just how many scam emails I receive on a daily basis, and a quick look back through discarded emails confirms just that.

On one day alone, by my calculations, I “won” more than $10 million (American), plus whatever one million British pounds are worth.....which sure sounds like a lot!

Those winnings came courtesy of winning the UK National Lottery, winning the Powerball Lottery, winning a BMW Motor Promotion, being selected randomly to inherit the estate of an Englishman who met an unfortunate demise and running into an Internet friend who had a draft from the Bank of Nigeria that I needed to collect at my earliest convenience.

Ten million dollars from lotteries I never entered, foreign banks trying to give me money and benevolent strangers enlisting my aide......any more, that’s just another day at the office!!!

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