Bright Ideas

June is historically our rainiest month. So, where was the rain? What does this mean, if anything? Is this an effect of global warming? Is it just another dry period like we have experienced before? How many months or years will we be dry? Will summer or fall showers replace the current lack of precipitation?

On our way home from Miles City, June 28, we drove through two heavy showers that could have totaled half an inch. When we got home, Brice checked the rain gauge, and it was just a trace.

That’s a lot of question marks in that first paragraph, a lot of questions to answer, and fears to assuage. Are fears justified? Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions; maybe no one else worries — yet. Hay crops might produce less if anything; how do ranchers feed livestock or where do they send livestock to fatten for fall shipping?

I’m not a rancher; my father had a small farm in Missouri where he had a few horses and a milk cow. Once or twice he raised an orphan piglet, but we never ate him/her. Piglets were for children’s amusement, my little brother rode the tame pig. Nearly grown they were fed corn shucks, and cobs after kernels were separated for freezing.

Missouri received much more rain than Montana. Dad’s main problem was hurrying to outrun showers when picking up the small bales of hay. We often hired high school boys to help bring in the bales. Mom liked to be outside and drive the pickup or tractor pulling a trailer for stacking and transporting bales to the barn.

It was stored in the loft of that barn, at ground level on one side, where bales could be dropped to feeding stations on the lower level. The loft was also a wonderful place for kids to hide, and older kids to have some silent time..

After all the bales were stacked in the barn, the crews came to the house. When I was older, it was my job to feed everyone burgers, and corn on the cob. Desert would have been ice-cream, pies, cakes, or bars. Drinks were: ice tea, frozen lemonade, milk or water — their choice. They never went away hungry, and were paid the going rate. We were especially grateful if they’d outrun the rain.