DROUGHT

Here in Kansas City, where I live, we are officially having a drought.  And it's not just any drought.  It's a Severe Drought.  We used to have a Moderate Drought, but then that turned into a Severe Drought, because we kept not getting any rain.  And if things continue in the same way, we might end up with an Extreme Drought.  The very worst kind of drought to have is an Exceptional Drought, and I hope we don't end up with one of those because Mom told me that in an Exceptional Drought, our toes will get so dry that they will just curl up and fall off!

Droughts have been around pretty much since the beginning of time, and the way you get one is usually that you have to go without rain for a long time.  To be honest, I don't much like rain, so I find that drought conditions make it nice for me to go out and potty, since I don't have to worry about getting my feet wet.  But of course, Mom keeps on watering stuff, and then I don't want to go out and potty where she made everything all wet with the hose.

Here are some of the bad things that can happen if you have a drought:
1.  Crops don't grow, and there's not as much food to eat.
2.  Grass doesn't grow, so livestock doesn't have anything to eat either.
3.  The land gets eroded, so there are dust bowls and dust storms.
4.  Animals and fish lose their habitats.
5.  People die from hunger because there's nothing to eat.

Drought in India

6.  If people don't actually die, they at least get weak and dehydrated and sick.
7.  People leave the dry land where they can't farm anymore, and they end up being refugees.
8.  Less electricity is produced because there is less water to go through the dams.
9.  People are unhappy with the situation, and they might even start wars over food and water.
10.  Lots of wildfires get started, and sometimes they burn up important stuff such as houses.



Anyway, in Kansas City, the amount of precipitation from April 1 to July 11 was 5.4 inches.  The normal amount is 15.9.  This means we only got about one-third of the rain we were supposed to get.  I don't know where the rest of our rain went, but I suspect that somebody stole it, and when I find out who did this, I will personally bite them on the leg!

Since it has been so dry, Mom has to water her plants every second or third day.  Also she waters the lawn once a week.  But even with all that watering, the plants aren't really growing, and the grass is just barely staying sort of green.  The good part is that Mom doesn't have to mow the grass, but she does have to keep watering, and the water bills are expensive.  Mom says that she is tired of paying them, and she is also tired of watering.  Personally, I think she just likes having something to complain about.

Some very thirsty corn

The people who are the very most unhappy about the drought are the farmers, and this is because their crops aren't growing.  Well, the wheat farmers did pretty well because they got to plant their wheat early and harvest it early, too.  So they had the wheat all taken care of before the worst part of the drought came.

But the corn is a different story because it is just sitting in the fields looking all short and pathetic and dried up.  And besides that, it's making sad little ears that nobody would really want to eat.  So some farmers have already decided that their corn is not going to amount to anything.  And they are just cutting the corn down and making it into silage that they can feed to their cattle next winter.

The soy beans are doing a little better than the corn because they tolerate drought better.  But some of them still look kind of sickly, and if we don't get rain pretty soon, they will probably get plowed under.

A farmer cutting down his corn.
Photo by Seth Perlman

Okay, well, that's my report on drought.  I wrote it last night while Mom was busy watering the very dry grass.  Then before I could post the entry on my blog this morning, guess what!  We got some rain!  It rained really hard for at least 5 minutes, and I thought maybe the drought was all over with.  But Mom said it would have to rain a whole bunch, in a nice, steady way for a couple of days or more to end the drought.  So I guess I can go ahead and post this anyway.  But I just want to say that even though drought is not a nice thing to have around, if I had a choice, I would  much rather have drought than floods.