Thursday, August 11, 2016

Rain + Other Tidbits

Rain. It is a beautiful thing. We have been in a drought this summer as you probably have heard. It has made gardening and farming very difficult. All over our Pioneer Valley, farmers are losing their crops because their source of irrigation has dried up. Our hay crop, which is what the sheep eat in the winter, has been incredibly slim. We are waiting to see what happens during this end of summer season. Then Mark will count the bales and figure out how many animals the crop will feed over the winter. Every morning he looks at the Drought Monitor



This is the first time we have experienced drought like this in our farming years. We have always felt so bad for farmers in Texas and Australia (and other places) when we hear about drought in other places. Livestock needs to be fed and drought often forces farmers and ranchers to sell much of their stock because there is no way to feed the animals. It must be heart wrenching. We are hoping we do not have to sell too many animals but only time will tell. 

Yesterday we had a very good rain. It thundered in the morning and then it poured and poured. I put a little video up on my IG account here of the rain. By the end of the day, the sun had come out. My garden - which is heavily mulched with cardboard and a very thick layer of mulch hay, perked up immediately. I think the sunflowers grew 6" in a day. This morning the fields outside our house looked a little greener. The lambs are growing very slowly this year because the grass is slim. 


Today and tomorrow are incredibly humid and way up in the 90's. I worked in the garden some until I thought I would pass out. The rest of the day was spent in the basement sewing a duvet cover for my upcoming book. Here are the colors of Kona Cotton I have chosen. It is turning out pretty. I am going to design the backing fabric and have it printed by Spoonflower. 


Beau and Sadie had their fur trimmed. They were so miserable with the heat. They look like Labs now, don't they? They just turned one year old. Boy, I hope they calm down soon because they are destructo-matics. You can see the stuffing from their dog beds in front of them on the stone. Not much is safe from them. They took up gardening last week and let's just say, they aren't very good at it. 

Pop back in tomorrow. I have something new to show you. 

5 comments:

Auntie Shan said...

We haven't had a drenching rain here in months! - Just annoying humidity! Base temps have been 90+ all week and I've pretty much given up on the humidex readings! Our front lawn is STRAW!
Anyhoo, there's a rumour of rain tomorrow..? [haha] And cloud coverage for the next few days. -- I'll believe it when I see it.

BTW, glad the Dogs got "naked"! I hardly recognised them! ;-}
And that tearing up stage... I don't think that goes away. -- Be grateful that it's THEIR bedding and not YOURS! - Last year my Niece's boyfriend's Great Dane *totally* ripped out her couch! Blue stuffing EVERYWHERE! Although, in the dog's defense, I think the reason he did it was because her teeny dog had a bad habit of peeing in places where it shouldn't have! -- But hey, THAT's all a TMI "SOAP OPERA" for *another* day!

Whatever, hope you get a good SOAK soon!
:-D

Michele in Maine said...

Oh, the pups look so funny! So sorry their gardening skills aren't up to par.
Yes, very dry here in Maine too, but my livelihood doesn't depend upon it like yours does. I hope you get more rain soon! It's supposed to rain through most of Maine this weekend, maybe you'll be part of the front too.

Happy sewing!

Margo said...

When I first saw Beau and Sadie's photo I thought you had some new dogs. No doubt they are more comfortable now.

Michigan has been experiencing a drought too. There is rain in the forecast for today and tomorrow, I'll believe it when I see it.

barbara woods bewtjw@gmail.com said...

We are in a drought here in Ga to

martha darnall said...

Seems like it's feast or famine with rain this year. Here in western Kentucky we had 19 inches in July and in August 6 inches to this date. Crops in creek and river bottoms were destroyed by flooding but pastures are spring green. It has been hard to get hay baled between showers. In a normal year we average 45-48 inches of rain and July and August usually bring only 2-3 inches each. Where your garden has struggled with lack of water ours have struggled with too much! We will see what September brings.

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