It Did Rain, However.

Nine times out of the last ten, the storms have either veered suddenly north and just grazed us, or simply dissolved at our doorstep. From today's local paper:

The weather earlier this week was a bitter tease to local farmers. A large area of rain developed in Indiana Monday night, and moved into the Buckeye state during the day Tuesday, filling radar screens with a wash of rain that looked like it couldn't miss. Most of Ohio received at least a decent soaking, except for a small area centered on Knox County, where the weather system dissipated and dropped less than a tenth of an inch of rain. The dissipated line regenerated into thunderstorms just past the county line, and brought heavy rain to eastern Ohio.

Belying my disbelief, last night was the tenth time, the one time it did actually rain. Local Girl was convinced that this would break the spell and that the rains would return. But today, with its 70% chance of rain, I sit and watch the storms on the radar. Blow north and dissolve. Curl up and blow away.
It will never be enough.

Wet, Wet, Wet.

It's dry here. Making references to historically rememberable droughts dry. Earth as a bone, grass as razor paper. As the blind melon lamented, there's been no rain.

In town, this means the occasional sprinkler ban.
Out here, this means that rather than making hay while the sun shines, we're all franticly feeding first cutting hay to staving livestock. Which is bad. After summer comes fall and winter. I will probably not be able to make winter hay this year.

My dad bought another 20 head of cattle a few years ago. Business to him was raising as many beasties a year as the farm could sustain. From my view, this was a mistake. We have never sold all our calves at our price, to people. The excess calves must be sold in their third fall, at cut-rate prices, to god-knows-who. He would have been better served to raise the price and found a way to sell to the yuppies in Columbus.
Grassfed Organic Angus. $1.75/lb hanging weight is a fucking bargain. Too much of a bargain. It appears cheap, when it was only my dad being too nice with prices. Someone needed to hit up upside the head with an economy text.

Too many cows. Too many calves. One creek is totally dry. The next is hardly anymore than a trickle now.
Bah.