Rain, Rain and more Rain
Rain or the lack there of is a common topic of conversation out here. It's always part of the discussion among the old farmers and ranchers that gather at the feed store for coffee each morning. No surprise there because the rain is so important to us out here. It's not just a complication in getting to work or avoiding flooded roads or intersections. It's our life's blood. Will there be enough rain to keep the pastures growing so there will be something for the cows, horses, llamas, alpacas or goats to eat? Will I have to buy hay and if so from how far away? Will there be enough rain to keep everything from becoming tinder and easily set aflame? All important questions worthy of discussion.
Last year we had a horrible nearly year-long drought and it was for-casted to last at least through this year. Wrong. We have had a very wet year so far in 2012. We haven't made up for the rain we didn't get last year but we are rocking along towards a VERY wet year end total. Last year as of July 14th 2011 we had had only 10.1 inches of rain for the year. We should have had almost 26.5 inches by then so we were over 16 inches behind. We always joke that being way behind in our rainfall is only the first part of the pain. Making up the missed rain is the other painful part.
This year could not be more different. We got a great new weather center for Christmas last year so for the first time in my living out in the country I really do know how much rain we've had. Our total rain for the last day is 4.97 inches, for the last week it's 7.21 inches and since Jan 1 we have had 31.29 inches of rain! Yikes! We are almost 4 inches ahead of normal. That still leaves us another 12 inches just to make up for the first half of last year. I don't have the figures for the last half of last year but it sure wasn't wet.
Understand, we never have standing water out here. Well, almost never. We did yesterday morning after getting nearly 3 inches of rain in just a couple of hours. And our ditches are always empty. Empty as in bone dry. But 3 inches of rain is a LOT of rain.
Wet animals and brim full feed bins greeted me yesterday morning. And they didn't get fed on time either. I had to wait for the rain to pause.
The Texas Sage puts on a show of flowers each time in rains. It's glorious!
They are forcasting rain each day for the next week so we may be much farther ahead soon. Or maybe not. You just never know. In the mean time - stay dry!
Update - I just got back from the feed store. The nice young man who loaded my feed for me said they've had a foot of rain (yes, that's 12 inches of rain!) at his house in downtown Cat Spring. They had 8 inches of rain yesterday. Holy water wings, Batman!