Weather

My dad grew up on a farm, so I have always had a strong appreciation for knowing what the weather report is.  He always watched the weather and was a constant source of weather information.  If I wanted to know what to wear the next day, I just asked dad what the weather was going to be.

I learned fun sayings like "rain before 7 a.m. quit by 11 a.m."  Meaning if it's raining before 7 a.m. it will usually stop by 11 a.m. (it's amazing how often this saying is right!).

I have watched the weather was earnest along with my dad all my life.  After I became a mom I found how good it was to make sure my kids were dressed right for the weather (oh how terrible I feel when there is snow and they don't have their boots, or they wear shorts and the temps never rise).   I love being prepared for them.

Now with our farm, it's amazing how very essential it is to know the weather.  It's amazing how we will be at home and catch something on the weather radar and Emma will jump up and say "I'm going to feed the boys" (her chore is to feed our male alpacas).  If she sees rain on the way she will get her chore done as soon as possible.

This weekend we were watching the weather on Saturday morning and heard about the prediction of rain all weekend.  It was reported the rain would start about noontime on Saturday.  I told the kids this was our chance to get all the main farm chores out of the way before the rains fall.  We all know what a lot of rain means this time of year - poop soup!  And trust me, it is as nasty as it sounds.  The ground has been frozen somewhat, so it doesn't drain as well as it does after a thaw in the spring.  So this means as the rain is falling, it sits on the ground, doesn't drain deep down like it does all summer.  This time of year it sit there, especially in the spots the alpacas poop and makes what we can only describe as "poop soup".

I cleaned up our entire farm area this morning, then headed over to the other farm we care for.  There I cleaned up the paddock area of all the poop, so as the rain starts to fall the poop soup is less poop than soup :)

I decided not to take pictures of poop soup.  My farmer friends know exactly what I am talking about without pictures and my non-farmer friends really don't want to see.