Towards the end of June I awoke one morning to an 80 percent chance of 1 to 2 inches of rain.  We really needed it.  Our last, significant precipitation had been a half inch a few weeks earlier.  It came on oats I had seeded down for cover in our cattle lots.  It was dry enough the half inch soaked right past them and never got them to sprout.

By 3 pm the chances for the day had dropped to 20 percent.  By the end of the day, they would be reduced to zero.  It had become depressing.

The Fourth of July brought inch and a half amounts within just a few miles of the farm.  For us, it brought a sprinkle.  The brown yard crunched.  The corn rolled.  Late soybeans remained the same height they were a month ago.

Now the extended forecast showed 7 days of 90+ degrees and no rain in sight.  I thought about the neighbors’ crops I drove past.  I thought about the neighbors.  I wondered how much more grass remained for our cows.  I wondered what it was we were going to do for hay.

It’s such a funny thing this day and age to be in a profession still held on pins and needles by the uncontrollable, and still unpredictable, weather.  A little like financial markets, I guess, minus much of a reason why emerging from the aftermath.

Last night, with the same 20 percent chance, we got half an inch.  It is nice to know it can do it again.

Parts of the state are much drier than us, and parts of the country are drier than them.  Perhaps we will have no more than a whiff of a drought.  A whiff is plenty.  Perhaps this half inch of rain will be short-lived.  This morning it is enough.