The weather has been unusually dry where I live.
With next to no rain for the last 2 months combined with a minimal snow pack this past winter and a dryish spring the consequence has resulted in withered field and forest. I last mowed our front lawn several weeks ago. The now brown grass forms a crunchy stubble that painfully jabs into the soles of my bare feet . The local hay fields have been cut and the grass bailed into round muffet like shapes. Farmers tell me they are already feeding their livestock the muffets when normally the cows and sheep would be happily chowing down fresh grass in paddock or pasture. I wonder if there will be a shortage of hay bales this coming winter. Many trees look tormented by the heat and the dry, if a tree can look tormented. Their leaves look parched, some with leaves turning yellow and then brown and bypassing autumn altogether. Ponds and marshes, creeks and streams, many are dry.
Hereabouts, farmers of the type that grow food such as corn or soybean are concerned. The rain that does come is hit or miss. Mostly it is a miss. And if it is a hit it comes down hard, then runs off the dry land quick as a lick. I heard on the news radio today the American mid west is in the midst of a drought too. The corn belt is getting hit hard. Looks like a killing could be made on the corn futures market. But the rest of us are going to have to watch our pocket book this coming fall. Corn and soy is in most everything we eat. But maybe the eating ain't so important. Corn for biofuel. That is priority one.
Meanwhile one of the things I find interesting there is little or no mention of climate change/global warming. Weather it is on the news or exchanges between neighbors and friends the subject seems to be taboo. I guess you knew I was going to bring the topic up. Well we already know that climate does change. Can't really argue that. The trouble is I have a feeling that what is taking place is not quite part of the normal ebb and flow of weather cycles. Now I am not going to try to convert people into becoming a climate change believer. You think what you wanna think and you be responsible for those thoughts of yours. But I think we in a whole mess a trouble and there is no quick nor easy solution to the jam we are getting ourselves and our future generations in. I think the changes have begun and there's no turning back. That leaves us the question, what are we gonna do? It leaves me the question, what am I gonna do? More on that in coming posts.
