Drought That's What it's All About Just Ask Pebbles

Remember when? Yeah, well me either it appears, but it seems like it used to be much hotter in what I know of as the "Dog Days of Summer"! Not really as it has been very very hot these past few seasons of summer. However this winter or in the past couple of weeks actually we have even had some snow. Now that is a little unusual if you compare it to the past few years. So at least the 20 inches of snow we received will help a little this springtime. Hopefully the wheat, Kansas is known as the wheat state, will get off to a good start this year.

Lately here in the Midwest at least in our neck of the woods, July and for that matter, June as well has been much hotter than August. Sometimes I wonder why this is but for the most part it's not that important. I am not a farmer, I don't work outdoors very often and fortunately I can for the most part spend most of my time indoors. So no it really does not affect me that much. But I do pay bills and the electric bill is less expensive the past couple of years in the month of August compared to June/July.

I think we had over 25 days at or above 100 degrees for June/July of 2012. Needless to say we broke a few records in the last couple of years due to the heat and heat index.

As I said we did get some snow and a little rain with more in the forecast, but still not nearly enough to make up for the lack of it in the past couple of years . I think we are something like 20 inches below normal in rainfall for the past couple of years. I know it is like this all over the Midwest. We have 105 counties in our state and this past or last summer Marshall county was considered as a drought disaster county which unfortunately puts all Kansas counties in this declaration. The Governor made the following statement that day.

"The updated drought declaration has all 105 counties in an emergency status. This status triggers the Kansas Water Office (KWO) and Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) to issue a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for emergency use of state fishing lake storage under conditions of drought emergency declared by the Governor. This action was recommended by Tracy Streeter, Director of the KWO and Chair of the Governor’s Drought Response Team.

Our focus at this time is to ensure communities, livestock producers and farmers have the available resources they need,” said Tracy Streeter, Director of the Kansas Water Office and Chair of the Governor’s Drought Response Team. “This MOU would allow small communities and producers to pump water from certain state fishing lakes to provide some relief if they are in dire need of water."

"As fields, pastures and stock ponds get drier in this drought, we must do everything in our power to assure livestock,” said Dale Rodman, Kansas Secretary of Agriculture. “This declaration takes an important step to provide an additional water source for livestock and going forward we will continue working with all stakeholders to help producers cope with and recover from this drought."

So what has it been like in your neck of the woods? Let's hope that it begins to rain and the heat lightens up this summer. Comment below and let us know what your area has been like. Most of all thanks for stopping in and reading and taking the time to send this to your facebook family/friends and tweet it out to your followers. Your participation and feedback is important to us. I know we don't always tell you how much we appreciate your stopping in and visiting our blog but we are very grateful that you do. Always know that we read each comment even though we don't always reply back. Thanks from the Admin. Staff here at Mommy Chrissy Plus 2 Blog.

(That is my dog, "Pebbles" and she sure stays close to the fan and water dish in the summer. LOL)