Friday, June 29, 2012

Rendering

No, I'm not rendering more pork lard.  I was out watering the garden for the second time today.  And that sizzling you heard?  Yep, that was me, melting into a pool of fat and cooking on the gravel driveway.  The entire 10-day forecast has us at a 100+ degrees for all but three days (those being 97 and 99).

Now, I know this is Arkansas and considered the "South", but we're far from being considered the desert.  It got up to 111 here three days ago and today was up to 109 today.  So said the two theomometers on my back porch, which is shaded the hottest part of the day.  And not a drop of rain in sight.  We had some rain in the beginning of April, maybe a bit over an inch.  And then a ten minute drizzle a week later.  But that's it.  The only reason my pathetic garden and fruit trees are alive is that Paul and I are watering them on a daily basis.  I sit with my eyes glued to the Doppler radar and sob uncontrollably when I watch the wonderfully colored green, orange and red colors representing rain split or disappear just before they hit our area.

Last year was a scorcher too.  I have a picture somewhere of the temps reaching 115 degrees.  But that was in the beginning of August - we haven't even hit July yet for gawdsakes!  I can only hope and pray for rain.  I know it's horrible, but I was really hoping that Debbie was going to turn into whopper of a hurricane.  Not because I wish misfortune upon anyone in the form of flooding or destructive winds, but hurricanes usually mean rainfall for us farther up north of the Gulf.

I can't imagine how the hay situation is going to pan out this year.  The first cutting was about a third lighter than normal.  And those that waited a bit too long ended up with fields of brown and crunchy bails of hay in their fields.  We were able to get six bales of a good hay in the barn (and when I say "we", of course, I mean "Paul") and the promise of another ten bales.  I called the hay guy last week and he assured us that he'd save ten of the forty bales he has for us, but they have yet to appear.  I don't want to call him and nag, but if I don't hear from him in a few days I'm going to call to check.  I'm a little hay-shy since our "promised" hay from last year was sold from under us and sent to Texas.  Hey, I know you guys in Texas need hay too, but this was supposed to be our yearly load.  Luckily we were able to scrape up a bale here and there, although the last two bales were really only compost-worthy.

So, here we are again, waiting on the hay.

And here I go again, watering the garden for the second time today.  I can't imagine what we'd do if we had only our garden to survive on and didn't have a constant and reliable supply of water.  Oh wait, I could imagine it.  We'd STARVE to death as our vegetables would be dead and the fruit trees withered beyond any chance of bearing fruit.  Even if we did have our rain catchment system in place, there wouldn't have been enough rain to catch anyhow.

Well, I suppose I'm done complaining now.  Try to stay cool, and keep those in the areas ravaged by the wildfires in your thoughts and prayers.  Oh, and if you're in a drought area, please, PLEASE refrain for lighting off fireworks on the 4th.  It's not worth burning down the forest, your home and your neighborhood.

7 comments:

  1. Oosh! And here I was complaining about our days of upper 90's that are forecast to continue. And I hear you on the rain barrels. You can't use rain barrels if there is no rain!
    Hang in there, it has to cool down sometime.
    Judy

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  2. What a heckuva situation to be in. So glad you at least have the water to water the gardens and fruit trees with. I just came in from watering also. We've been hitting the 90s during the day with lots of sunshine and wind which sucks all the moisture right out of the soil and plants. Flooding one week, dry as a bone the next. Farming and gardening . . . who would do that if they didn't have to? (Okay, we all would, but still . . . )

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  3. You made me laugh with your "sizzlin" the fat cells away. (I could loose a few myself)...

    But you break my heart hearing about the continued drought ya'll are going through. It's a tough cycle you're in. We'll all go through it at one point or another. Thank God we live in modern times so we can cool ourselves off, purchase food (and hay) from area's that aren't as hard hit as we are.

    And hope that next year will be better.

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  4. We've had montah here 100 or over, it just stinks. Mid 90's here today, and it's water the garden time. Thanks god for the chickens, the soil is better than ever atleast. We need rain too, but in the city, on a lot, it's city water, and the rates aren't bad compared to some areas. It will get really ugly when our tiny water company gets bought out by a multi-national corp., like the rest of the country...

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  5. Here we have flooding and there you are trapped in the middle of a searing drought, what we need is a happy medium. As you stated this is the second year in a row for hay shortages - yikes.

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  6. Last night we had a little rain and a little coolness. It has given me hope as we see our own pastures drying up and blowing away. Without AC in our old farmhouse we spent a good amount of time taking 2-3 showers each day. Very short and cold ones

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  7. It is just AWFUL! Here's hoping you get some nice cooling evenings at least and some nice rain showers, but NOT those deluges that just mess things up more. Can't believe July has just started, this is August weather, and not a very nice August either LOL!

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