Raining… finally…

My gosh, I was never so happy as to see it finally pour rain down on our little dry and dusty patch of dirt here in northwestern Ohio.   It’s been one of those days that I just don’t want to recreate.  It started with a painful bout with my dumb tummy and then a customer did a chargeback to our account and a big fee (long story, not worth it)  and then it was just hot hot hot and unpleasant out.  Satellite is being bad, I can’t upload proofs to a customer that needs them NOW and it’s just rather miserable here today on so many accounts.

One of those days.

But it’s finally raining.  Or well, rained.  For about 20 minutes, pretty hard.  It will help.  We need more though, much more.

Days like this I wonder how people got through the depression, oh, bad in the 30’s and all.  Or the wars… the world wars…  when all around you was bad days and no good news and shortages and all.  It helps me to put my one or two bad days into perspective.  Sure does.

This too, shall pass.  I like to tell my girls that.  Especially to remind myself that hard times don’t last, hard people do.  It’s easy to start feeling a little down and put upon, wondering what did you do to bring this little dark cloud over your patch of sunshine.  I think it’s just life.  The Lord never promised us heaven on earth…  there would be hardships and issues and we all have that burden to carry and all, it’s just knowing that there is a better place waiting, that should be enough, right?

Yeah, sometimes, it does feel a little heavy, this life we carry.  So many issues, so many things to have to do and want to do, it can get all swirly and upsetting at times, just sort of wears a person down.  I know I’ve been worrying a lot about our little farm, and the animals, and this drought.  It’s the worse we’ve had in 35 years I read yesterday.  35 years!  There is a lake near us and it’s dried up.  A whole lake.  There’s just a little muddy sinkhole at the very middle.  We saw about 15 or 20 big blue herons all trying to gobble up the dying fish there.  Quite an unusual sight for sure.

And hay… oh my gosh, hay prices are rising like crazy.  A bale of hay was about 3 or 4 dollars at the most.  Now?  I heard at the Archibold auction on Monday, the lowest price was $7 a bale and most were paying $9 to $12 a bale for good stuff.  Shesh!  We are out of hay at the moment, and low on cash, so it is going to be another day or two before I can get a load.  Just more worries.  Friends are selling off surplus animals.  That is scary.  I’m glad we don’t have a big herd, but still, I can see that it’s going to be really hard come winter to keep everyone happy and fed.

We opened up the fence to let everyone into the dog yard today, and they were working that little patch like crazy all afternoon.  Cody was so happy, he was rolling in the little bit of grass.  We have a few other areas that we can let them into, but we have to get more fencing up.  Just one of those things.  More to worry about.

It will be fine, things resolve, hopefully this little bit of rain will help to freshen up the grasses.  Hopefully, we will get another storm or two before the morning light.

What do you all do when you really want to worry yourself to death, but you know it won’t solve anything?  Do you have some sort of ritual, some sort of thing that you do that makes you know, it will be okay?  Things pass?  I try hard to just focus on the good and stay busy, clean my house, get some work done, watch a movie….  read…..   pray….   just try and keep positive.  It’s hard some days for sure.  Very hard.  Kind of that “fake it till you can make it” sort of attitude.

Well, here’s hoping that we have a few sweet days of summer due us all soon…   those Martha Stewart days of summer with lemonade and sweet fruity deserts and some nice grilled food and summer salads waiting on a nice big old picnic table….  that would be so nice, eh?

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About Mobymom

the banjo player for Deepwater Bluegrass, and the editor of BuckeyeBluegrass.com as well as the main graphic designer of the Westvon Publishing empire. She is a renaissance woman of many talents and has two lovely daughters and a rehab mobile home homestead to raise.

Comments

Raining… finally… — 12 Comments

  1. Is it possible you expanded too quickly? Maybe if you put a moratorium on bringing any new animals to your farm until next Spring or Summer (unless it’s to replace animals you’ve sent for finishing) you’d feel less stressed. Especially as you’re trying to get a handle on your health, too.

    • Well, aside from the bunny my daughter got with her birthday money and has been waiting on a few weeks now, we haven’t added any animals. It’s dealing with a 35 year old drought that is causing everyone around here to have difficulties for sure. But hey, thanks for the idea, we don’t plan on adding anything till the spring when hopefully we have lambs! That will be awesome.

  2. I wish I could say that I do have things that calm me down and make me feel that it’s going to be okay, but I don’t really. Read books, play video games, maybe. Honestly this year is bad for me too. Drought, blown water pump, lack of work (I freelance). But we all have to hang in there. I need more caffeine…

  3. It’s just tuff going for everyone right now Sherry and we never know what the future holds nor will we ever. All we have is the here and now and that is all we should worry about. I grew up with a worry wort mother and it always drove me crazy and still does, she can invent things too worry about. I have always tired to make her understand that worry doesn’t do any good and it waste all your energy that you will need to put a plan in action to prevent whatever it is your worried about. Don’t let it happen. Sounds too simple doesn’t it, but it works.

    It is scary dry here also, over 2 and 1/2 months here and not a single drop of rain. Rain has danced all around us, even as close as 3 miles away but none here.. Our pastures are gone gone gone. Lucky for us, out hay supplier got 3 inches of rain a while back and it made a second hay crop for him and we have now brought home 3 loads of 150 bales each load. So so thankful for that and feel so lucky to have it. My horses are real hay burners and we use one bale per day for horses and goats. My husband makes big round bales for the cattle and he only got one cutting this year, don’t know what we will do if we run out as folks are already feeding their winter hay right now. It is scary for sure. Many people are selling cattle right now and that is bad all the way around. We don’t “have” to yet, but when they are fat and ready….they won’t fetch that pretty price anymore and the sad thing is, we won’t see cheaper meat at the grocery store either. We are having to haul about 200 gallons of water out to some of the cattle because the pond is all dried up in that pasture and that is where they have drank for decades. So weird and scary. I told my husband I think it is the end of the world only instead of flodding this time, he is gonna dry us up. The whole US is in such a drought, I have never seen this beofre like this. I think food is going to be so high after all this and most people’s gardens were flops, mine sure is, the cold 56* well water just doesn’t do it like the rain does and to top it off, we have had over 30 days now of 90 or above temps and when I say “above”, I mean 100-107 degree heat with that good old Missouri humidity.UGG!! I am almost ready to throw in the towel. lol. We purchased big barn fans last summer and we run those and I also make misters for the goats and chicks. They seem to lay close and enjoy that. Such a tuff summer, but you are right, this too shall pass. That is what I always say when things get bad. I just try to picture a day down the road and things are swell again. I sure hope things start to level out for ya and I sure hope you stop, even on the bad days) to stop and see the beauty that each day holds. Another favorite saying of mine is “Treasure these moments, for these moments are your life”. We have to make good of each good day the Lord gives us. I know you are a treasure and relish it moment girl, so I bet you have no problem there.
    I am looking forward to your picture book, when it is ready, I’ll be here, but could you please give explicite instructions for us non computer folks as to how to down load it and will I be able to get it if I don;t have a huge space on my computer or have a fast connection. My internet connection through broadband is a joke. Still waiting on St. Obama to install my rural internet connection. lol Hope you all have a fantastic day and things get better for ya real soon….and here too.

    • Wow, it’s tough all over for sure. In all the years I’ve been farming, ain’t never had to feed hay in the summer… (haha of course, that is my ONE year… hahaha) But around here, it’s not very normal for sure. It’s great that your hay guy got rain… we finally got a nice day of rain today, that is really going to help.

      My garden is not very good, like so many others… I feel your pain for your garden! And the cattle…that is hard… that’s a lot of water. That is so weird that all the ponds and lakes are drying up, around here, there are places that I never thought would dry up

      Oh yes, the heat has just been too much lately… it’s just not that pleasant out in 105 degrees!!! No fun!!!

      I have finished up the book and it’s at the proofreaders, should be soon! It looks like it will be a few more days or so and then I will get it up here on the website. It’s so pretty!

      Thanks for your good cheer! It’s a good thing…..

      Sherri

  4. Very very dry here in Illinois now too. I’ve heard it’s worst down in Southern IL.

    I’m not a farmer (big, little or in between) but I sure feel bad for you all, that’s for sure. You are ALL in my Prayers that it rains for your crops and well being very soon.

    God Bless you all,
    Suzanne in NW IL

    • It’s finally raining! Been off and on again all day, thank goodness! I sure hope it helps…

      I think it will help out greatly!!!!! Thanks for the good words and kind thoughts!!!

      Sherri

  5. I also worry about how people are going to get by, especially those with animals. We have four horses, chickens, rabbits and two cows and I had hoped to find another horse since two of ours are now retired. Hubby replanted our hay field this spring but its kaput. Luckily we decided to buy hay at first cutting ‘just in case’ and am I glad we did. Was able to get about 400 bales before people started holding on to what they had and we still have 14 big round bales from last year. The horse pasture is just holding out but we are watering the cows pasture to keep grass growing for them. It did get rain last night and today so that will help tremendously and there is a possibility of rain next week. The one thing we did was order a pallet of alfalfa pellets from TSC today…hopefully that will help stretch the hay along with beet pulp and TSC has the 10% 4H discount this week which was nice. That and dog food. You should have seen the womans face when I ordered 15 bags of dog food; she was practically biting her tongue! LOL She shouldn’t have been so surprised, I think a lot of people are doing what they can to stock for at least a year to try and make it thru the higher prices hoping for a good yeild next summer. I know we aren’t done and hope we can finish before the prices hit.

    • Oh, I hear you!!! I was just talking with Maggie that we need to start buying up as much hay as we can afford. I estimated we need about 100 bales to get us through this year. 125 would be better. And I think you’re on the right track too! Buying up feed bags of alfalfa pellets. I’m going to be working with some sweet feed as well. Store as much as we can handle. Prices are going to be going way up I’m pretty sure of it. This nationwide drought is going to be hard on a lot of folks, not just with animals… I expect food prices are going to start going up as well. Just not good… we just need a lot more rain soon!!!

      Sherri

  6. I love this quote from “The Little Book of Stress”: “Think about it. Why meditate when you can worry? Worrying is meditation carried out by realists.” This statement in the book was intended to be humorous, but something about it struck a chord deep within me. Sometimes we have real honest-to-goodness reasons to be worried. Why fight it? Why berate ourselves for it or feel guilty about it? In my opinion that just makes the worrisome situation even worse, like there is something wrong with us for being worried or the fact that we are worried is a character flaw. I have analyzed my times of worry (I have had many.), & finally came to realize that when I worry, what I am actually doing is studying the problem incessantly from every possible angle. And when I am doing that, I am really looking for a solution to the problem. You must first fully know & understand your problem before you can find an appropriate resolution. I also realized that when I am losing sleep for days at a time, it is usually followed by a time where I sleep very, very deeply, & in that deep sleep I often wake up with either a resolution that I hadn’t considered during my waking hours or a realization that there truly isn’t a resolution & I just need to move on. During my times of worry I also frequently lose my appetite & eat very little. This would actually compare to times of fasting, a practice of many religious faiths all over the world. Accepting worry for what it is–your entire being devoting itself completely to the resolution of a very real problem–has become a great relief to me over the years. I no longer compound my worrying by worrying that there is something wrong with me because I am worried. In other words, I have fully embraced the idea that, “Worrying is meditation carried out by realists.”.

    Oh, & here are 3 quotes that I love that could apply to your current situation. I actually got these from one of your earlier posts when you were still in the mobile home. I believe the post may have been called “Words to Live By”. Sometimes it is nice when things we have put out in the universe come back to give us a needed boost. Here they are:

    “Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.”
    “Every path has a few puddles.”
    “Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.”

    • Oh my gosh! You are SOOOOO right! I love how you explained it all… wonderful.

      I remember reading that Men are from Mars and Women from Venus book and I did like the part where the author talked about how men and woman deal with difficult things. Men like to retreat to the man cave and deal with stuff. But women? They must sink to the very bottom of the pit of despair and resurface to make things better. (Of course, I am just sort of making it simplified…) But the thing that I remember is that he also said, by sinking to the bottom allows the woman no where but UP to go… and she will accept the hands of her fellow women and such as a help, but only at the bottom. Not as she is falling… haha…

      You are so right about the worry and the time and place for it. My night of sleeplessness was awful, I just felt like I was being a terrible mom and person and that somehow I had brought everything down on myself, and so on and so on… and yet, in reality, it really wasn’t that bad or anything… and then I also got to thinking… it was that “time” and this is the first cycle that I had a.) gotten my diet a WHOLE lot better, but also b.) had used a lot of the drugs recommended… and I got to thinking, could some of this “down blues” be a result of the drugs, the diet and the hormones???? Throw in a little genuine worry and stress and poof! You have depression city for a long long night. The next day, I did sleep like a log and I did feel that things would be fine and now, they are. Better. For sure.

      I do know that so much of our worry never does come true. That is for sure. And I’ve been in worse pickles and lived to tell the tale… I’m sure this little bit of rough road, heck, it’s just normal for us. We have a slightly seasonal product line and such. A lot of our stuff sells around the Christmas holidays and then our schooling products sell during the school year. Our summers are always a little thin. I think this year, which has been the worse in years, is just a huge wake up call that I need to find another income stream that will help during the summer…. and that has been my quest now! Haha… I think I might try my hand at article writing… homesteading stuff. Just a thought. Sell a couple articles a year, that might help things. I have been published before, long ago, back when I was still wet behind the ears! I think my writing has improved tenfold since then. So… that’s an idea. And I have a dozen others… just time to get ‘er going… haha….

      Thanks so much for writing!!! You guys are all so awesome…. I hope this helps others too!!!

      Sherri