Much Needed Rain

One pre-requisite of farming - complaining about the weather. If it is nice for any length of time, we complain about the lack of rain. If it is raining for more than a day or two, then we are drowning. There is a lovely, soaking rain this morning with a crash-boom-bang thunderstorm forecast for this afternoon. The weather is much more dramatic here than I have ever experienced in NJ. I love it. Storms roll in off Lake Ontario and really give us a show. I keep thinking about the biggie last summer the day I took Hannah and Luke to the airport. The bolts were coming down like giant spears from the sky. I couldn't get out to my dogs who were huddled in their igloos. The big barn light, riveted to steel with large screws, was blasted off the top of the north side doors. The Sisters came out the next morning with anxious concern on their faces and asked if the barn was hit. After all, they built the barn with their bare hands before they went to be nuns in the convent. It was very scary and very exciting...nature's great operatic production. I love to sit on the mound of hay bales in the barn with the big doors open and watch the storms rolling in from the northwest. Many farmers are hit by lightning while on their tractors. It enters your body then exits somewhere, frequently your head, leaving a smoldering hole. How do I know this? My mother was a nurse at the Hunterdon Medical Center years ago and would have some of these unfortunate farmers as patients. Not a pleasant thought to leave you with this morning, but I have to get to work.