Relative Something

Any moisture in a drought becomes all the more precious, so a little dew in the morning takes some of the edge off how harsh it feels outside. The dew also causes all the overnight spider webs in the pasture to become highly visible in the low light of the rising sun.

The horses seem to be tolerating the dry and dusty conditions with their typical demonstration of coping skills.

In their favor, the lack of wetness has inhibited the fly populations to a significant degree. However, it has also drawn a large number of bees to hang out around the horses’ automatic waterer. Cyndie put out some apple cider vinegar-baited traps and tried a couple of bee spray applications to discourage the establishment of a hive in the body of the Ritchie waterer.

Paddock Lake has become nothing more than a dug-out depression good for dust baths.

It’s getting hard to imagine how much rainfall it will take to ever fill that crater again. With the month of September just days away, the outdoors present a distinct feeling of an early onset of fall, minus the cooler temperatures.

Maybe we’ll get a wet October, which doesn’t seem unusual at all, but I don’t recall rain in the tenth month of the year historically amounting to the level of moisture we will need to put a dent in the dryness that has occurred this summer. I’d like to hope for a lot of snow over winter to give us a kick of moisture during the spring melt next year, but the strong El Niño is expected to result in a warmer winter with less snow in the Twin Cities.

I’m getting what pleasure I can from the early morning blankets of dew until the next rain event. There’s a tease in the forecast of a 70% chance on Saturday, but I’m not holding my breath. We are hosting guests for lunch that day, so maybe that will increase the chances. One can hope.

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