It's raining and there's hay cut in the field...

It's raining and there's cut hay in the field. Oh well. 5 weeks without a drop of rain, forest fires burning out of control across the state....we needed rain. Everything needed rain. The animals needed rain...the dust was out of control. Leaves on the trees were curling up. Grazing meant dusty grazing, the grass coated with dust.....and ash. Yes, when we woke that morning to the dense smoke from a fire very south of us that had enveloped our world overnight, there was a light dusting of wood ash on everything....you could write on the hood of the truck with your finger through the ash. It also covered the trees and the grass, which meant the grazing animals were indeed eating not only dust but ash. Probably not much, but still.... teaching lessons in the dust clouds the sheep feet stirred up left grit in my teeth and my hair coated. So we needed the rain. It is supposed to end by tomorrow, the sun to come back out and drying days ahead, so even tho the hay has been cut and is down, and it may turn a lighter shade of green than I'd like to see in the barn hayloft this winter, it will still dry out, it will still be baled, and it will still provide needed fiber to my goats and sheep. You know, it was the 3rd coldest winter on record...now what kind of record will we set this summer with this drought? Who knows, it's amazing how the pendulum swings...

Today is our first day of rest in many days now. I have things to do, pens to clean, work staring me in the face, but we also need to get some rest. There are bales of hay to put on the elevator to the hayloft, but it's raining now so soon we'll be working late into the night to put them in place for the long year ahead...not now tho. There are bills waiting to be paid, but how can you write checks and balance farm books when you're sleepy? There's a screw up on my first registrations for my lambs...maybe I fell asleep when I was excitedly filling out my registration application, I don't know, but somehow a moorit ewe produced a black lamb and a black ewe produced a moorit lamb according to the paperwork so that will have to be mailed back for corrections. I am quite sure the moorit belongs to the moorit and the black belongs to the black...oh well, things happen. And when it's raining, all the animals get quiet. I think they are happy to have the rain too, happy to just sleep and wait for their humans to eventually pop out the door so they can get noisy and call for something, anything, and preferably attention. So for now, all is quiet.

The photo is of the storm that took several hours of our sleep Tuesday night. This was the first wave that hit Anchorage - at the base of the photo you can see the south hayfield. A few hours later the BIG storm came directly over us with more lightening than I've seen in many years.