This spring was unusually dry. Seems that we got into one of those hot, dry, the rain is always missing us, weather patterns. The first time I mowed our lawn in Minot I raised a dust storm. Usually there are April showers, and the flowers start to bloom in May, but not necessarily this year. You know it’s a dry spring when your neighbor, who grew up on a farm, had not found her rain gauge until Mother Nature finally did decide to give us a very limited “shot” of rain in mid-May.

I knew that our rain gauge was ready for whatever showers passed our way…because we had to take it apart (it is one of those electronic rain gauges) and clean it out, in anticipation of the rainfall that was going to come in April. A real test of how well my skills at cleaning out a rain gauge were would not take place for several days. And when it finally looked, according to the weather experts, like rainfall in Minot was imminent, we celebrated a total of .03 (or 3 hundredths) which of course did little to revive a very brown (we don’t have sprinklers) lawn.

Somewhere in the month of May, actually the 16th of May, we were introduced to a new terminology, “A Dust Blizzard” as the Weather Channel declared. It roared in from the west, a wall of dust that pretty much covered the horizon. In downtown Minot where my office is the dust was so thick that the street lights came on. Not only had it not rained in Minot, but pretty much most of the northwest corner of the state had missed any significant rainfall. The topsoil was easily picked up by 70+ mile per hour winds and the result was that wall of dust and dust cloud that arrived in Minot mid-afternoon. It certainly seemed like our destiny was determined. We were going to return to the days of the 1930’s when according to our older friends and grandparents it didn’t rain for months, and in some locations the drought continued for years.

But as bad as it seemed in April and May, farmers still had hope and spring planting still went on as planned, albeit with limited supplies of fertilizer. We soon got to learn about the geographical location of the Strait of Hormuz, as if drought conditions weren’t enough.

In my years in North Dakota I have not had a reason to keep track of the number of days that the temperature would break the century mark in May. In our day, schools did not have air conditioning; many still do not, because 100 degree plus days just did not happen during the school term. Sure, there were those hot days, around 80 degrees, when it was a race to get home and ditch the long pants for shorts and a t-shirt, but 100 degrees for 4 days in a row. That’s ridiculous! Add those hot days to a lack of rain and now you have a lawn that appears to be pretty much done for the summer. No need to get out the sprinklers and hose; there is no way you can maintain the momentum of watering an entire lawn for the 3 plus months of summer. As they say, “it is what it is”. With an air of frustration, you look to the sky and declare that you’ve given up on a green lawn in the summer of 2026. You tell Mother Nature to “have it her way, then!” You plan to survive with brown grass and dust bowl conditions.

But then, the tide, or the rain patterns, would start to turn. We are hearing forecasts that talk about moisture being drawn up from the gulf. Really? No more atmospheric domes that keep the moisture away. That’s what they, the weather experts, are saying. Temperatures moderating and returning to normal (yeah, tell me what normal is). They have been wrong on their predictions all spring, why should we buy into this new weather prediction now?

To make a long, whining, story short…it started to rain. And then, according to our neighbor, we were in California, when a dark cloud would roll over we would receive .30 hundreds of rain, not three hundreds of rain. The lawn started its’ renewal. It was starting to get green again. Brown spots were filling in with green grass. What a way to change an attitude.

There are lessons to be learned here; and I don’t think it has changed much over the decades. 1) A beautiful green lawn is certainly better than a dormant brown lawn. 2) You can’t predict what you don’t control. 3) With green grass comes the never ending job of mowing the lawn…and with much greener grass that job occurs more often.

So, be careful what you wish for. Rain is normally a good thing, and green grass helps the attitude of an entire city. The grass is always greener, and the attitudes are normally better, when it rains.

Rambling Around…
I know it’s kind of a long “staycation” away, but we had the opportunity to travel through Yellowstone last week. We went through the northwest corner of the park and were treated to geyser basins, beautiful forests, waterfalls and wildlife. It was worth the few extra miles we traveled to get to Yellowstone. Maybe next summer?

Today’s Chuckle
A lot of people with open minds should have them closed for remodeling.