It's the Weather, Again...

For the past two weeks, the weather has been beautiful.  It even managed to get hot!  It took about a week for the standing water in the Main and East pastures to dry.  The ground still has a tremendous amount of water in it;  in many places, when you walk on it, it still feels spongy.

We are keeping the herd to the Main pasture. It is the drier of the two. Constantly walking on wet ground is not good for an animal's hooves. Grazing is not a problem this year. The herd is barely keeping up with the growth in the Main pasture.

This means that the East pasture is growing out of control. The grass is three feet tall - great for baling, if the land would support the weight of the equipment. If the weather holds, we will probably direct the children to take the herd out there every day until school starts. Getting them to cooperate, however, is a different story. Now that the weather is hot, neither wants to leave the house.

Speaking about the weather.... The blocking loop in the jet stream, which was bring us a string of low-pressure storm systems, has moved. This loop allowed our weather to get hot and dry. The loop also had the effect of preventing the formation of tropical storms across the Atlantic. Only one very weak one, subtropical storm Andrea, formed during the time the loop was in place.

In the last two weeks, four have formed. The first, Tropical Storm Barry, formed and died, The second, a tropical sotrm named Chantal, quickly spun north across Bahama. The third one, Hurricane Dean, formed in the mid-Atlantic is churning westward accross the Caribean - it is expected to hit Jamaca today, cross the Yucatan and hit Texas by the middle of next week. The fourth one, Hurricane Erin, formed earlier this week in the Gulf of Mexica and has already clobbered a line from Corpus Christi through San Antonio and out into the western part of Texas.

Where Dean will hit is still open to question. The National Hurricane Center, has the following perdiction this morning: