In the next month (October 2022) it looks like the drought condition will be removed from Hopkins County.
We had a significant rain on our land, 5″, last Monday, about 10 days ago. Since then we’ve had a little rain here and there. Yesterday I recorded 1/4″ which is nice. The forecast is rain pretty much every day of the week.
In addition to that, the temperatures are maintaining at low 90’s to mid 80’s with significant humidity. Even in the mornings when the temperatures are at their daily low in the mid 70’s, I am sweating and uncomfortable.
I came here to Hopkins County to raise cattle, and for that, I need plenty of natural grass. The grass needs rain to grow, and historically this county sees on average 36″ up to 48″ of rain in a year, spread out throughout all the seasons.
This last year was terrible. It seems the skies sealed themselves off starting about August of 2021. The autumn brought cooler temperatures but little or no precipitation. When it did rain, it would drizzle an insignificant amount. The summer grass had nearly depleted the soil of any moisture, and so the grass just didn’t grow in autumn.
Winter was dry as well, unusually so. We knew heading into spring that without the winter rains, the grass would be stunted. But I, along with others, hoped for the rains to start up again in the spring. We did get a few showers, but not enough to make up lost ground.
By the time summer 2022 started, early I might say (with spring 2022 starting late due to a late blast from the arctic), the ground was dry, and the grass was dead. There was no summer grass growing anywhere. There was no moisture in the ground. The hay harvest was poor. Contracts were broken, and the price of hay reached ridiculous levels. I didn’t even bother looking for hay, I knew I would not find any at a reasonable price.
Summer 2022 was dry and very hot. The temperatures were unusually high, although it was not very humid as it normally is. This continued all summer long, until the latter half of August, when it started raining and the temperatures began “cooling” to normal hot weather — low 90s to mid 80s.
And now we are here. We have moisture in the top layer of the clay soil. We need a lot more rain to make up for lost ground. We need it to rain and form puddles and sit on the surface so that it can penetrate deep into the soil. We need to restock all of our ponds too.
And hopefully, this winter we will see good rainfall all winter long. Hopefully, spring will come early, in January or February, and we’ll have relatively cool weather until June, to give the cool season grasses plenty of time to grow. And hopefully, when summer hits, it will be tempered with regular rainfall and warm nights, to ensure the warm season grasses have optimum growing temperatures.
This is one of the reasons I chose Hopkins County. If history is my guide, then I expect to see a good, regular rainfall, with moderate or warm weather, for most of the year for the next 10 or 20 years.