Friday, July 20, 2012

This drought



In my whole life, I have never seen a year as dry as this one.  I've always been staunchly opposed to watering my garden.  In the past, most plants held on until finally a rain came.  Oh, I might lose some beans, and the kernels on my sweet corn might be sparse, but I made do.  
This year I have watered with the soaker hoses.  A couple of days ago we drove past a garden belonging to someone who obviously had not watered, and the above cartoon is pretty similar to that garden.  Everything was completely dead.  
My parents were married in 1932.  Mother used to tell me about how dry it was in the thirties.  In her world back then, if you couldn't raise a garden, you couldn't eat.  She told about lean years when they had nothing but bread and water gravy for supper.  One year someone gave them a bunch of dry beans in the shell, and they ate a lot of beans that winter.  On the news I keep hearing that 1936 was a record dry year, and also had record high temperatures.  That must be the year my mom was talking about.  
I've blogged about my memories of Eagleville, Missouri, in 1954.  I was ten years old, but I recall how dry it was and how thankful everyone was when it finally rained.  
It just doesn't seem as though it's ever going to rain again.  
People are depressed and rather snippy with one another.  OK, maybe that's just me.
We are reminded of just how helpless we are.  
Grocery prices, of course, will rise more.  I just dried my cow up and found out milk costs considerably more that it did the last time I was forced to buy some.  My timing never was that great.  
At least I'll have tomatoes to cook with all winter, and there's still some beef in the freezer.  I have a lot of bean recipes, dishes that are healthful and affordable.  I'll have milk again if and when Bonnie calves.  The vet is coming Monday to pregnancy check all three of my ladies, and then we will know with certainty how many calves to expect, and when we will have our own milk again.  
There's a better day coming.

8 comments:

  1. I hope you're right about better days coming. From where I sit it's starting to look pretty grim out there. I am grateful my hubby took this temporary job to put money in the bank. But I'm not looking forward to it ending and we're back on Social Security alone. Going to be tough times indeed.

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  2. The weather has been brutal nearly everywhere. It's scary for crops AND people!

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  3. The cartoon says it all.
    I've long given up on trying to grow anything here in arid West TX. It's a complete impossibility. I'll never know how the ranchers and farmers survive.

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  4. I remember the drought here in 1954. I was a senior in high school and it seemed like it would never rain again. We had a nice rain yesterday and the day before so today we are paying for it with heat. At least we have green grass for a change.

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  5. You do have it a whole lot worse than we do in Ohio. I drove through a lot of farm country on the way to my camper yesterday and things are still growing nicely. We also had a couple of days with scattered showers so I'm sure they were all thankful for that too. At home I know our flowers appreciated it. We've been watering them. Your well must be a good one to let you do so much watering. I can remember my grandmother talking about how others well would go dry, but her's always had water. It was a spring fed well and was some of the best water I ever tasted. You are an optimist starting your fall garden. Our weather man says it looks to stay hot and dry here for at least another month. We'll see...August is usually our hottest and driest month.

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  6. I'm still considering pulling up stakes and moving north. The winters are harder, but the summers are much milder. This heat is slowly roasting me.

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  7. We have finally had some decent showers here. It isn't enough to catch us up, but it did green up the grass and make the weeds grow. Water levels are still way down, though.

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  8. It had been dry here until this past week or so. I'm also glad our temps got a little better too. I even trimmed the bushes (waiting to pick up the debris though til it cools down as it is VERY humid despite the cooler temps). Hope you get some rain.

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