Family Farm Friday #94: Dad's Rain Dance

“From where we stand the rain seems random. If we could stand somewhere else, we would see the order in it.”  ~Tony Hillerman

You might remember this blog I wrote in the midst of a multi-year drought about having faith that the rain gauge would fill up one day.  I have always seen empty rain gauges during rough times as a sign of hope and faith that one day, the rain will come again, as improbable as it may seem at times.

I am happy to report that currently, we are having one of the wettest years that I can remember back home on the ranch.  Grass is green.  Hay is growing.  Livestock is full.  Everyone is happy.

How much rain have we gotten, you ask?  Couldn't tell you.  We don't have a rain gauge up.

Every winter, my dad turns the rain gauge upside down because when it freezes, it will break the gauge and you don't measure snowfall with the gauge anyway.  So you leave the gauge upside down until Spring when you flip it over and start counting the rain drops. Except my dad decided not to do that then. Now, three months after that first rain, he still hasn't done it.

When we call for rain reports we get one of two answers.  "There are big puddles in the driveway" or "The neighbor says he got an inch twenty."  The Boy from Texas asked me why my dad didn't just go look at the rain gauge.  I knew the answer.  It's the same reason he wore the same shirt holes and all to every pig show for 8 years after we won our first banner.  My father is incredibly superstitious.

He has convinced himself that if he walks out to the fence and flips that rain gauge, the rain might stop coming.  Logical?  No. But he comes by it naturally.  My Gran had a very strict rule that you did not look at that gauge until the rain had stopped, there was no checking mid-way through a storm to see where things were sitting, you waited until the end because you didn't ant the rain to quit.

And after you survived four years of one of the worst droughts on record, I suppose you do whatever you think will work. So you may not see my dad out there doing a rain dance, but if you come by our house, you'll see a rain gauge upside down on the fence and puddles in driveway.  Praise the Lord for that!