This post was most recently updated on July 11th, 2015
It’s raining, it’s pouring! And I’m not complaining! Well, not much, anyway. The truth is we’ve been in a drought for the past 8 years and we desperately need the moisture. But I’ll be honest … it’s been raining for about three weeks now … and I’m starting to get a little annoyed.
Shhhh! Don’t tell my husband! Or anyone else around here, for that matter. I’ll be ostracized and kicked out of the Farm & Ranch Wives Club. (We don’t really have a club, but I surely will be in trouble with the locals.) So, let’s keep this little conversation just between us, okay?
Spring started off here, about like it usually does – a few days of cool to slightly cooler temperatures and then – BAM! – 90 degrees … in April. Pretty typical stuff. All the farmers and ranchers (including my husband and dad) speculated, complained, prognosticated and complained some more. We were prepared for another summer of scorching hot, dry, windy misery.
Then, out of the blue (literally), this happened:
Those clouds just boiled up from the south and it started to rain. And rain. And rain.
Presently, we’ve had a total of around 8 glorious inches of rain over the past 2 or 3 weeks. Which is more than we’ve had in the past 8 years. Seriously, my 7 year old and 2 year old have never seen this much rain – in their lives! They’re fascinated. Daddy taught The Bear how to watch the lightning and then count until she hears the thunder to see how far away the lightning is. She’s really into it. And Sir will stand at the big window and watch it rain for hours at a time. Well, not really hours – maybe minutes. But in toddler time that’s like years. The kids don’t even seem to mind that our yard looks like this:
The only people who seem to be even a little tired of the constant precipitation are me and the dachshund. I have things I want to do outside. My garden and my newly planted porch flowers are drowning. It’s cold. (I actually had to put the electric blanket back on the bed!) We can’t mow the lawn, which has exploded with all this moisture. You can see here …
The grass & weeds that make up a country yard are growing over our sidewalk to nowhere. When Georgie goes outside to do her business, we can only see the top of her head. Our driveway is a complete lob-lolly. The 4 miles of dirt road to the highway into town is ridiculously sloppy. And the sun hasn’t poked it’s face out in days.
I need the sun. I took a health quiz that crossed my Facebook newsfeed the other day about Vitamin D deficiency and I have all the symptoms. I’m so pale I’m almost translucent. There’s mud all over the house … and I just bought a new area rug for the family room. It’s cream-colored.
Now, I’m not discounting the benefits of the rain. There’s water in our ponds for the first time in years. Yay! The grass is growing in the pastures and it’s allowing us to grow our cattle herd. Double yay! In fact, if it stopped raining right now and didn’t rain again for the rest of the summer, the grass would do just great and our cows will continue to be fat, sleek, and sassy. There’s no dust blowing into my house and my allergies seem to have calmed down. It smells amazing outside. We don’t have to run the air conditioner in May and we’re saving a bundle on electricity. But …
It’s Memorial Day weekend and it’s too cold to swim or camp out. It’s too wet to grill. It’s too muddy to go anywhere or for anyone to come visit us. It’s even too muddy for us to visit the various cemeteries to decorate – a tradition that we’ve not missed, ever. So, you know, there are some drawbacks.
I’m mostly over my whining. Thanks for listening. Y’all can be honorary members of the Farm and Ranch Wives Club if you promise not to squeal to my husband what I said. I really am grateful for the rain. Truly. Our land is so parched and dry that even all this precipitation has not taken us out of the drought, although it certainly has helped move us in the right direction. In a few weeks when it’s dried out and the summer sun is beating down on me as I work in the yard, I’ll feel really bad for complaining.
For now, however, I’m missing the sunshine. I think I’ll make some lemonade, hook up my husband’s shop light and pretend I’m napping on the sunny patio.
Love & Blessings
Farm Mama
