Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

You read the weather forecast from the weather service and it tells you to expect .25 inches of rain or so. Ha. Starting Wednesday evening to Thursday evening I estimate we got about an inch of rain/snow here. What a surprise. Mostly rain until sunup Thursday when it turned into snow that lasted most of the day.

You want to talk about mud, it's muddy here now. This rain was....interesting. Most people are celebrating it and I am not unhappy with it, but I'm not celebrating it. I had moisture in the ground at least as deep as a post hole if not deeper so I was not desperate for the moisture by any means. In fact our most pressing need now, and before this rain, was warm temperatures to grow some grass, not moisture. The ground is pretty saturated and a lot of this moisture did nothing but run off. In fact, I was in Billings today, the boy had to make his therapy and I was worried about the muddy roads and My Darling Wife having trouble since I have been negligent and not put decent tires on the vehicle yet (fixed while in town), and the amount of water running between Hardin and Billings was astounding. The ground just couldn't take any more so it was running off. Same thing here. Water running down the creek. It always bothers me when I get rain and it runs off. I want it to soak in and do me some good. Not runoff down country. It doesn't help me much then.

Reading the forecast I might be out of luck on what I want though. Good chance of rain on Sunday and again on Tuesday with temperatures trending down all the way through. My Darling Wife is really hating this. Traveling our dirt road in conditions like this to get the kid to the bus is a trial and with more moisture coming it will only get worse. Normally the 10 miles takes about 20 minutes. Yesterday in the mud it took almost 40 minutes and more moisture will only shove that number higher. Lot's of people think playing in the mud with a truck is fun, out here it's a fact of life we would rather avoid if possible. With the weather forecast like it is we are beginning to consider My Darling Wife and kids moving to town to get the oldest to school. Not a lot of fun for any involved and expensive besides. We will see how this moisture settles and see how much more we get.

The only good thing about it if anything is what all this might portend. Does this portend a wet spring? I sure hope so. Some warm temperatures to grow some grass and then maybe another shot of moisture then. That would be nice. Warm temperatures are a must at this point though. More rain running off down country doesn't help the situation. Temperatures to use the moisture will. Rain after rain after rain with no letup though will not help that much. I know, complain about too much moisture, complain about too little moisture, am I ever happy? Yea, when it's exactly like I want. Grass growing like mad. That's what I yearn to see now, not more rain, green grass. It's coming, you watch.

Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit. Anton Chekhov

P.S. Being in Billings most of the day I didn't get any pictures of the rain or mud. I will try to get a picture of a mud puddle or two to share.

Boy it got warm around here yesterday. What little snow there was on the hillside above the corral broke and overflowed my diversion ditch and was flowing down through the corral. What a mess it was making in the corral.



I felt like some farmer tending his irrigation walking around with my shovel diverting water so it didn't make too big of mess in the corral. Once I got it flowing through the corral I worked on the diversion ditch and finally after a couple of hours picking at the frozen ground got the water flowing through it like it should. Walking around with a shovel tending water. Bah, farmers do that.

I called a well driller back in December about drilling a new well in one place out in a summer pasture. He said he would get back to me at the end on January. I finally heard from him yesterday. I guess he got January and February mixed up. He wanted to come out and drill the well next week. I told him to call me when he is closer but that it is wet enough I don't think he could get his rig in. He was very surprised by this. He said as dry as everyone was he was sure he could get out here. I told him it wasn't real wet out here but it was slick enough his rig would never make it. Never assume just because "every place else" is dry to think we are. Most of the time we have a "little" more.

I don't know when I will be able to get the driller in. Eventually I will and more money will be out of my pocket drilling a new well. Better that than the cows dying of thirst though.

Water, air, and cleanness are the chief articles in my pharmacy. Napoleon Bonaparte