Between rain, other conflicts, I just got my first cutting of hay done.  I put this field into a permanent type of grass called W.W. B-Dahl.  It is an old world bluestem that was modified by Texas Tech University to thrive in our area.  This is my third year to cut and bale it.  This field is only 7.5 acres, but this year it made 40, 5 foot X 5 foot round bales!

Wow, that was heavy.  What were they about 20 feet apart?     In contrast, I just finished 2nd cutting here last week, fields of alfalfa, some mixed with grass and some straight grass of brome, orchard and fescue.  Even the stuff I had irrigated didn't do that well, off the entire 85 acres, I got 40 6x5 round bales.   Our drought is really impacting.  The only good thing is we has a decently wet spring and the pastures got a jump, which is good, because nothing is growing now besides weeds. 

We did get a rain yesterday, about a half inch in a thunderstorm, 1st rain of any kind since the 3rd week of June.  There has been rain around us, and some large hail too, but we manage to miss all of it, even some that were just a mile or 2 away.  But its definitely dry all of over our area.

This has been a very strange year for us. With the sub arctic temps in February, to a so far very mild, and wet spring and summer.  Have only had 1 day so far over 100, and the day after the hay was baled, we got another 8/10's of rain.  That puts us just over 40 inches for the year.

Wow, we have not had 40 inches total of rain in 3 years combined.  If not for the late wet snows we would be in a dust bowl I suspect.