Gambling on the Weather

I've been having a really good time building my little Farm Town farm over on Facebook. It's an addictive little game and it's right down my alley. I'm putting my crops in and hiring folks in the Farm Town community to harvest them for me and sometimes getting hired to help them increase their profits.

In real life, I'm watching the crops wither and die this year as a result of the horrible drought. The corn fields burned to a crisp under the steady above 100 degree temperatures we've been suffering since mid-June. About all you could do with what is out in the fields right now is to make hundreds of cornhusk dolls or possibly a few million tamales. I expect any day now I will see the tractors plow under the sad, dried up stalks. (What Farm Town refers to as "corn field gone to waste" when you do not harvest your crop in a timely fashion.)

The cotton is still going strong. It bears up under these conditions a lot better, but I don't know how much longer that will be since there seems to be no end in sight. Also the maize (at least I think that is what this is) is making a crop and looks about ready for harvest.

I enjoy driving past the fields of reddish brown and today I decided I would stop and get a closer look.

It's quite pretty up close and personal and I didn't realize how much of it was still green until I waded out in the midst of it.

Farming is always a gamble of sorts. The area I drive through has suffered a major hail storm earlier this year and now drought. How sad when Mother Nature turns all your hard work into ruin.

I have a lot of respect for my farming ancestors whose sole source of income was based on the success of their crops. It had to make for years of joy and years of heartbreak, many times depending on the toss of the weather dice.

LSW