20%

Over 2 nights, we received 2 inches of reprieve, each night. 4 inches of reprieve, which, I think technically puts one outside the realm of reprieve. 1 inch is reprieve. 4 is a tad gluttonous.

The second 2 inches of rain was a little bit unexpected. Or at least, the morning before, there was little chance of rain in the forecast. That’s where the 20% gets you. Sometimes rain is assured by the predictions, and lo and behold, it indeed rains...it rains some scant amount that you’d still hang your clothes out to dry in. Other times, a mere 20% is 2 inches that drenches everything and collects into temporary duck ponds. Even though the rain for Sunday night seemed all but certain, I was moving irrigation right up into the event. I didn’t turn it off until the radar made a convincing argument to do so. At that point it was also already raining.

Now we weed the crops in the saturated soil. What was a difficult job due to the hardened dried out ground is now simple in the pliable semi slurry. The wheel tracks are compacted enough that we don’t sink in. The weeds slip out easily, roots and all. Onions are saved, spinach is saved, salad is saved. It’s too wet to do anything else for a day or two, so we take advantage. And we need to take advantage. One day I’ll have a weed free farm. It’s not that day yet.

I see posts from other farms and I count my blessings. Though we got 4 inches total over 2 nights. Enough to completely hit the reset button and over enough time to mostly soak in and not wash everything away. Others received 6 inches over 1 night, or 2 inches over 15 minutes! That is an event that puts you back a few steps! When you decide to grow produce in the midwest, you put yourself at the very real mercy of Mamma Nature. If we were shrewd business people…well if we were shrewd business people, we would not farm. But if we were shrewd business people who for whatever reason DID farm, we would do so someplace where we could control things as much as possible; control the elements to a T, outside of major disaster that is, and drain the Colorado in the process. I guess we’re just not that shrewd.

We’ll have one more hot day of weeding this week. Hot, muggy and easy. After that the soil should be dry enough to prep for all our fall planting, get a round of cover crops in, and generally go farm crazy. We’ll keep an eye on the forecast too…for what it’s worth.