Rain, please!

They're saying we may get some rain in the next several days. If we do, it'll be the first real rain in weeks--maybe months, I've lost count. We're experiencing a major, historic drought.

On Wednesday I was talking with my friend L, and she told me that an acquaintance who lives down the road from us was forced to send his cattle to slaughter because he couldn't afford to feed them anymore. Pastures are brown and crackly, and the price of hay has gotten up to $70 per large round bale. As we stood in the park talking, we saw a cattle trailer turn the corner, as if on cue, bearing another farmer's cattle toward the sale barn.

Yesterday we had one of our smoky days. It was a full moon, and the moon shone eerily orange through the haze.

I heard from a fellow vegetable vendor that he has nothing to sell because of the dryness. We have that problem to some extent, too: You can water all you want (or all you can afford), but all it seems to do is keep the plants alive. They don't really grow the way they ought to.

WE NEED WATER! Please cross your fingers.