Monsoon Season

The first couple of years after we moved up to the farm full-time offered classic Northwoods summers—cool, moist mornings, a little rain in the afternoons, and maybe three days of 80 degrees. There really wasn’t any need for air conditioning, and we hardly ever needed to water the garden. But by the third year, a new normal had settled into the Northland—eight years of drought.

Each summer, the drought would start earlier. One year, it started in August, the next in July, then June, until it even started in April. Imagine a year with hardly any April showers! It was an environmental process entirely terrifying for a family that was trying to build a livelihood from tending the land. What if the wells ran dry? How would we maintain the animals? Pastures dried up, trees suffered, and insect pests we’d never seen before gnawed their way through the land.

This year, however, things have shifted again. Our long, cold winters reminded local old-timers of yesteryears, with piles of snow everywhere and prolonged cold snaps that made trees pop in the night. Not too many years ago, St. Patrick’s Day was 80 degrees and we planted the garden in April. What a contrast this year!

This spring was the classic, “Don’t put out anything until Memorial Day” that Grandma used to caution. Soils stayed cool well into June, leaving everyone feeling their gardens are running a month behind schedule. But at least we can say that we haven’t had to water this year!

Out of the polar vortex of winter and spring, we’ve instead climbed into what I’ve been teasingly referring to as “Monsoon Season.” If the weather is predicting even a 20% chance, we’ll get hammered. Sprinkles, rashes of rain, and downpours. Lots of downpours. Yesterday, while cleaning chicken coops, Mother Nature was having a grand time playing peek-a-boo with me.

Now I’m sunny, now I’m raining, now I’m sunny, now I’m raining.

This spring, the creek that passes under our lane rose so high, we began to fear it might creep over the roadway or erode beneath. It’s entirely fortuitous that we’re experimenting with plastic mulch this year in the garden or most of the beautiful soil may have been washed away. I’ve hardly even touched the water in the rain barrels except for filling the ducks’ kiddy pool, and lately chore time has been pushed around based on when the latest gully-washer eases.

I’m not complaining—this is exponentially better than a drought—but it does seem that the new normal is anything but normal. The other day, the morning air smelled cool and crisp of September, another morning feels like October, and then another like April. Perhaps we’re just having a bit of English weather lately: moderate with moisture often. Can you see the different greens of Ireland yet?

But not having to water the garden comes with another tradeoff: not being able to make hay. This week, we’re going for it, as there finally appears to be a four-day dry stretch. Typically, we’d be hoping to make hay near the end of June before the grasses have headed out. But this year, there wasn’t any chance of that happening.

Off in the forecast, there would seem to be a break coming, but then as the days drew near, NOPE, they’d change their minds and we’d be back to more rain.

The longer the hay stands before cutting, the less prime the nutrients, but there’s no worth to cut hay that’s been rained on. It molds and composts within the bale, heating up to such high temperatures that barns will go up in flames. We had a few wet bales once, which we tore apart that same afternoon and laid out in the lawn to cool before feeding right away. We had to wear gloves to keep from being burned—that’s how hot those bales became so quickly.

On the other hand, the ducks haven’t minded the monsoon season one bit, dancing and prancing and preening in the rain. The month-old ducklings are still getting used to it, running into their shelter in fear of the falling sky. But once they’ve shed their golden fuzz for oiled, white feathers, their fear of rain droplets will be quite abated.

“It’s good duck weather” Grandpa would say as puddles form everywhere. Little kids on farm tours have loved the puddles too…though not the parents. I wonder if I’ll be hatching tadpoles in some of them soon—the puddles have become such permanent farm fixtures this year.

I don’t know what it was about last autumn, but the weather seemed to wait for me to be all the way out in the pasture tending the turkeys in their tractor pens and then POUR! I’d hunch up, crunch up, squint my eyes as the rain dripped down my face. And then once I’d have everything packed up in the golf cart to head back, the skies would lighten and the rain would stop. Really, was this some type of game?

This year, there’s less of a sense of tease and more of an “I’ll just rain whenever I feel like it.” Two Mondays ago, we were butchering our first batch of chickens. Huge storm clouds were forming that afternoon, sailing to the south, then the north, then the south.

“Plenty of room in the sky over there!” I told the clouds, then blew at them in a humorous attempt to keep them away (as if one little puff could do such a thing). “You have to wait until we’re done!” A couple of sprinkles was the sky’s reply, but the deluge did wait to hit the farm at nightfall, after we were cleaned up and the equipment was stored away. At least nature can have some courtesy…when she feels like it.

Will our little monsoon continue, or will we find ourselves with another dry August? It’s hard to say at this point. If the new normal is anything but normal, then this year will remain a weather wildcard. But hopefully all this moisture has filled the lakes and worked to replenish aquifers. After this week’s haying, though, I’ll probably be reaching for the raincoats again. But listen skies, let me get that hay crop in the barn first, ok?! See you down on the farm sometime.