<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP107703.htm" >Drought scars Australia's land and farmers</a><br />n<br />n<blockquote>Farmers battling Australia's worst drought on record are shooting cattle they can't feed, abandoning dustbowl farms to search for grass with hungry livestock and hand-feeding animals on moonscape paddocks.<br />n<br />nThe worst drought in 100 years has left farmers the length and breadth of Australia looking to the sky and praying for rain.<br />n<br />nOn the black soil plains near Walgett in the northwest of New South Wales state, diminutive May McKewon, 68, lives alone on her 6,000-acre (2,400-hectare) cattle property.<br />n<br />nAfter seven years of drought, her son has left the family farm to earn some money, leaving her to run it on her own. Each day she hand-feeds her cattle, determined that her beloved Longview, owned by her family since the 1800s, will survive.</blockquote><br />n<br />nThis is unbelievable. I sometimes wonder how healthy it is for me to obsess on drought so but I can't help myself. I read about this record drought in Australia and I wonder and worry. Will this be us next? Will I experience a drought like this? It's been dry around here, but has it been this bad? What would I do if a drought got this bad here?<br />n<br />nDon't get me wrong, with the moisture that got put in the ground late last fall I can probably guarantee myself a half of grass crop so it won't take a lot more to limp through another year. I'm tired of limping through though. I want a wet, lush year for a change. What I want and what I get are two different things. I just don't want to see things as bad as in Australia right now.<br />n<br />n<strong>I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us. Alice Hoffman</strong>