Rain

The record books will not show the small drought we experienced in early to late summer. We had near record rainfall through early May and then the tap went dry. Very dry. We had everything watered by mid to late July and then scurried away on vacation. The plan was to return and continue pumping water after the trip. We were in Garden City Ks the first night and on rising we called home and were informed that thursday night the 19th of August it rained 1.25" back home. On the following thursday another 1.30". Then 2.25" on the 7th of this month and then .90" on the 10th and now 1.5 this afternoon the 12th. A total of 7.2" in 24 days. It has begun to rain easily. If this rain continues to fall, I'm going to get way behind on my irrigating.
I put this up in an effort to document this for my future reference. No other reason.
Nothing can make, or for that matter ruin a farmers vacation quicker than the news that it rained back home. If rain is needed, the news will make you float on air for a few days and no one can charge you enough for gas or a hotel room to ruin that giddy feeling.
If you don't need the rain, and it rains a lot doing damage to your crop, the same news can make you want to fly home and have the family bring the car.
Farming is alluring to some because you are your own boss. That's true. That just means instead of asking someone else what they think, you have to make the everyday decisions from what is ricocheting around in your head. Is it too wet to till the soil? To dry? Which implement should I use? Which tractor? How am I going to pay for that? Should I start irrigating?
To the person with no farm experience, it would appear to be pretty complicated. Experience answers most of your questions for you. It could take an hour to explain why you did something a certain way. But the decision may not have been made by reasoning but rather by remembering how much trouble you caused by doing it the wrong way last time..
Farming boils down to be just like a lot of other occupations. You'll do okay if you can pay attention, and remember your mistakes. You may remember my explanation of education. Education is the method we've developed for keeping track of the mistakes.