Homecoming

As the most regular readers know,or at least suspect, I am back home after being away for three weeks. Once again I was out camping in Western Pennsylvania for the duration of the Pennsic War of the SCA.

While we were there we experienced some of the extreme weather of 2012. We got the wet and stormy variety. When we got there the landscape was too dry for open fires, but the first two downpours took care of that problem.

When we came back to the Near North we were wondering what we would find. This area is pretty dry much of the time and forest fires are a possibility. We were in luck. Our horse-sitter told us that there had been nine days of rain, and she hardly had to top up the water buckets. So we found a landscape where there was real grass growing.

A close look, however, reveals that there are still plenty of places where nine days of rain was insufficient to revive the grass.the lack of spring blackflies has translated into a lack of blueberries.

My good wishes to all the farmers and gardeners out there who are struggling with drought.