local news: to dry to make hay

[wildhorse]

This was on the front page of our local paper.
A hot dry summer has meant trouble for agriculture across the state.
Hay is so thin that our county is already having to use Decembers supply in July and august. "If we don't do something there is going to be a disaster" quoted from Steve Troxler commissioner with north Carolina department of agriculture.

[fishhead]

We are in severe drought here too and cooking in sweltering heat.

[TwoAcresAndAGoat]

I live in NC also.

With all the rain we had the past week and rain predicted every day for the next week I hope the hay crop will be OK. I have half my hay in the barn already with a promise for delivery of the other half by fall.

[Jim S.]

There already IS a declared disaster in Alabama and Tennessee. Now all the feds need to do is actually appropriate funds to help out...

....waiting....

....still waiting...

[QueenB04]

Our first cutting in May was good, but folks are already cutting here just to keep the grasses from withering out before fall cutting.....our farmers have lost 40% of their corn crop, and loosing an additional 1% a day the longer we go without rain. Our fruit crop is destroyed, apples is all that we have to go on that will make any profit thanks to the cold snap. It just won't end. I can't wait to get hay this fall. This is Virginia and it's a state wide problem.

[fishhead]

Here's a quote from our state DNR website. We are in the Brainerd area and I can see why the seedlings didn't survive tranplanting. It's actually raining right now. One of the few times this spring and summer.

"Last spring, 230 acres were planted with 160,000 trees in the Brainerd area," said Bud Bertschi, DNR forester, "However, most of the areas where we planted trees will have to be replanted next spring. The hot, dry weather in June extended the drought that northern Minnesota has experienced for the past two years, affecting the newly planted trees."

[Feral Nature]

That was Texas the last couple of years. We had to feed what little winter hay there was last summer. The ground was barren of even weeds, it was a dust bowl. The water well went dry, the 4 ponds went bone dry for 2 years. We, along with hundreds if not thousands of ranchers, had to sell our entire cattle herd, it had been in the family since 1940. Total devastation in Texas and other states. No flies, no mosquitos, no snakes or fire ants. That is not normal or right.

Now Texas is in a perpetual flood. it has not stopped raining literally in months. It is july and it is predicted to keep rain in on into August. We are breaking all records for rainfall and LOW summer temps. It should be about 115 today here and it is 80 and has been all summer. I live on the edge of the desert southwest. Still forested and green, but dry dry dry in the summer. I live east of Marble Falls that just flooded, you may have seen it on the news, 19 inches in 12 hours or something. My neighbors have been rescued by boat, horses up to their nostrils in water. This is not right here.

Our hay fields in the area are waist deep and cannot be cut because it pours rain everyday. My cousin has offered us hay real cheap now at $2.50 a bale, last year all coastal hay was $11. square bale, limit 3 at area feedstores and you had to reserve in advance, and coastal round bales, trash with paper, plastic bags and roadkill were $125. up from $25. You could not afford to feed it and it caused death and bloat in cattle. Even starving horses and goats would not eat it.

I am so sorry yall are going through this now. Drought is devastating. Now we are flooding and battling severe paracite infestaion and loss of life, human and animal.

What have we done to this planet?

[Scrounger]

2 Chronicles 7:14

[wildhorse]

Originally Posted by Scrounger

2 Chronicles 7:14

Amen

[fishhead]

Climate change.