Rain. Sweet, sweet rain.

Have I mentioned we haven't received rain in almost 2 months?  Seriously.  5 miles to the north and south of us, they have gotten a few showers and sprinkles, but us?  Nothing.  Nada.  It is dry as a bone around here.  Our lawn is a burned to a brown crisp (not that I mind - dead grass means we don't have to mow it).  All my landscape flower and plants are shriveled up and dead.  Our once lush and thick pasture grasses are a thing of the past.  Poor Babette, Tacori and Toro (the cow and goats) hardly have a thing to eat.  I think we're going to have to start feeding them hay.  It's frustrating, but what can you do?  Nothing. 

This weather has been a good lesson for us as we embark on our first season of farming.  It is a harsh reminder that we are totally and completely dependant on the weather.  Michigan has had a brutal growing season.  First, we had an extremely mild winter, with hardly any snow (we need that snow melt to saturate the ground).  Then we had 80 degree days in the middle March.  While everyone around me was thrilled with warm weather, I was growing more and more nervous by the day.  With the warm weather, the fruit trees went into bloom early.  And of course, we received a late frost that killed most of the blossoms.  Michigan's tree fruit crop has been decimated.  There is hardly anything left.  Michigan is one of the leading states in apple, cherry and grape crops.  I cannot imagine what this is going to do to our economy... or how many farmers will have to quit farming and look for other work.

Then along came this current drought.  Fields of corn are parched and dying.  All my raspberry and blackberry bushes were dead before I could harvest a crop.  Farmers are hurting, big time.  We are just a small hobby farm, trying to provide our own food (for the time being).  If our crops die, then we say, "Oh too bad.  Better try again next year."  But for people who earn their livings by farming... they need your support and prayers right now.

I obsessively check the weather reports several times and day, hoping that I might see a chance of rain.  Some days I see dark storm clouds rolling over the house and I run outside waiting to throw my arms in the air and do this (well, I'd keep a shirt on):




Nothing.   It like the clouds are taunting me.  Pray for rain, my friends.