Drought Not a Concern, For Now

<a href="http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/06/14/news/state/20-drought.txt" >Wave of wetness improves state's outlook</a><br />n<br />n<blockquote>With floodwaters still receding across southeastern Montana, it's time to talk about drought – or the lack of it.<br />n<br />nThe agricultural drought – the one that produced sparse and spindly crops and withered range grasses during many of the past eight years – has subsided.<br />n<br />n"The agriculture drought is over, and that's huge news," said Jess Aber, a staff member of the Governor's Drought Advisory Committee and a water resource planner at the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. "Crops should be excellent, and it's a great market."<br />n<br />nThere's plenty to be happy about across Eastern Montana, where for the first time since the state started listing counties by drought status about four years ago, a large block of counties from the Canadian border to the Wyoming line are classified as "moist." In Eastern Montana, only Sweet Grass and Stillwater counties are listed as even slightly dry.</blockquote><br />n<br />nI do have to wonder about the figures they show with the story. My county is not one of the ones listed as moist but I guarantee you, it is. The ground is so saturated that it can't take up any more moisture so how could it be other than moist?<br />n<br />nThe story does mention the fact that the snow pack is low so we are still dealing with some impacts of what is called hydrologic drought but the agricultural drought is broken for the moment. There is parts of the state where it wouldn't take long to bet in trouble though so we are always on the look for more moisture, I guess. <br />n<br />nIt would be nice to get some haying done. I was visiting with the new hired hand and he was asking how many acres of hay we had to do, "300 acres or so," he asked? I told him close to 1000 acres and his jaws dropped open in amazement. He commented then that he hopes the weather gets better so we can get going because we had a lot to do. He didn't realize it was such a big haying operation here. Hell, I've had to because of the continued problems with drought. Cut more acres to put up enough hay to feed the cattle. It shouldn't be a big problem to put up enough this year but I want to put up a big surplus and store it in stacks. That will help mitigate problems of drought in another year because we all know that is going to happen.<br />n<br />n<strong>Hay in the stack is like money in the bank. My Dad</strong>