Sunday, June 23, 2013

Droughts

I live in the country, and we have a little farm. (Sounds like the start to a song.)

This can be very stressful if we're having a drought. We have been VERY blessed and had an early spring, and now we're having a very wet summer. All of our trees are FULL of fruit, and some of their branches are even touching the ground!

We have a mulberry tree next to our chicken coop, so it's always dropping berries on the ground. During the first few days, our chickens LOVE this. They'll stand all day under the tree waiting for the berries to fall. (Memo to me: avoid the purple splotches on the ground) But after a while, we notice less chickens, more berries. We throw them a couple but they look at the berry, look at us, look at the berry, then walk away. "You want me to eat THAT? Again? Are you serious?! No, thank you. Imma go eat bugs."




Because of the rain, and warm weather, our garden is now doing BEAUTIFULLY and since we  imprisoned  locked out the chickens from our garden we're actually getting veggies!

This is all in very much contrast to last year.

We did have an early spring, however just when our trees were all blossoming, there was a frost, then a drought. We survived, albeit very dissapointed. But we were lucky. Lemme 'splain.

 Most people think that a drought just means less water. But it's MUCH more than that.




A drought means that yes, there is less water, but that makes plants die, and when plants die that means that there's less food, and when there's less food for PEOPLE prices go up. When there's less food for ANIMALS, that means that people need to get rid of some, so they can feed the rest, prices for feed go up, which means they need to get rid of more.

Such as last year, prices for hay skyrocketed to almost $5.00 a bale. This is VERY expensive. We had to resort to feeding them hay cubes, which they DID NOT like. But we were once again lucky, some people couldn't even get hay cubes, so they had to use other things, which made some of their animals even die.

This also means that farmers lose crop, which mean that they lose money, which puts them and their family in a financial crisis.

This can also mean that people living on a well need to have water hauled in which = $$. Which puts them and THEIR family in a financial crisis.

I remember last year the lake that provided water for the city was 5 FEET below what the average height was for that time.

But  don't go thinking that there's no water to drink. We can/do get bottled water from the store, but it's very, very demoralising. Can you imagine not being able to drink your own water because it's getting too low?

So that my friends, is why droughts can be so damaging. Both financially, and emotionally.
Thanks for reading!
-MaryAnne


Cracked soil picture is from here. :-)

Mulberry picture is from here. :-)

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