Now You See It.

I wrote this in the summer of 2019. Still holds true as we ring in 2020. Some crops are still getting harvested. Some hay is just getting hauled in. It’s been a tough year.

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This year has been a wet year. No, that’s an understatement. This year has been a very wet year, one for the record books. Snow, ice, rain - they’ve all made their mark with us and in record amounts. The water just keeps hanging on and no one in ranching country really wants to openly complain about it - because Lord knows we need moisture far more often than not. But we are getting to the point where the standing water and mud is starting to wear on us about as much as a winter snow that comes in November and the snow pile never leaves until May. I know without a doubt, I will look back on this post in a year or two and chuckle that we were complaining about rain. Because it’s as green, humid and lush as I’ve ever seen central South Dakota in June. And did I mention it’s wet?

All this standing water, flood damage and earlier in the year giant snow drifts and ice got me to thinking about… 2017. Do you remember the summer of 2017? I do. The ranch does. The cows probably would too, if they could talk. 2017 was a horrible summer. It got hot early, like triple digit hot in late May and early June. And to add insult to injury, we couldn’t buy a rain. We’d see the forecast and it would call for 80% chance of rain, and not a single drop would fall. We would’ve begged for rain if it would’ve helped. The grass was so short and brown that it was like old pine needles. The dams in our pastures dried up, we had to fence them off to keep the cattle safe. Many producers in our area liquidated their entire cow herd because they had no feed. We culled our herd hard that year and reduced numbers significantly. We had colleagues in the South stalking the Fort Pierre sale barn, knowing good mama cows were being sold and scooping them up for little to nothing. We saw fellow ranchers exit the industry, we had bull customers that couldn’t make ends meet. And you can imagine the farming was no better. We had corn that barely grew over knee high. The summer of 2017 was brutal to livestock production operations as much as it was crop production. But the only way you’d remember it was if you lived it or you had a friend going through it. No media outlet picked up on it. We didn’t have news stories going viral on social media about a Chamber of Commerce dropping off cookies and notes of encouragement because of the drought. Politicians weren’t touting much about getting federal drought relief. Healthcare providers didn’t set up a hotline to be sure we had someone to talk too during the hard times.

The reason this wet summer has me thinking about 2017 is because this summer everyone is worried about us farmers and ranchers. And don’t get me wrong, we appreciate the concern. I’ve read and shared on social media my fair share of articles around the blizzards, flooding, ice damage and delayed planting or haying. It’s bad. But why didn’t the drought get the same coverage? Is the wet year any more damaging? My father in law says he’d rather be too wet than too dry. My dad agrees. And my grandpa always said he spent half his life waiting for it rain and the other half waiting for it dry up. I say drought or too wet - pick your poison - both hurt an awfully lot. So why is it that everyone who lives off the ranch is more worried about us now, than ever before?

I have a theory.

They can see it.

They see the water. They see the delayed planting schedule and the fact that there isn’t a stitch of hay baled. They see the damage from the floods and the pictures of the dead mama cows and babies after the blizzards. You can’t really see a drought. Not if you’re living in town. Your grass still stays green, you likely water it. You don’t actually experience the gapping cracks in the ground so large your kid can stick their leg in it. You don’t realize the grass shouldn’t be green, but so brown and dry that is feel likes a pine needles. During a drought, you’d only notice it if you were actually out looking at it, and most of our lives are busy enough the way it is. We aren’t going to notice the grass color as we whiz by on the Interstate.

Really, this comparison between the summer of 2017 and 2019 isn’t about which is worse, too wet or too dry. It’s actually about realizing that sometimes we rush to the aide of others only when we actually see the pain and loss. The rest of the time we assume everything is ok, because we don’t see it. Midwesterners are stoic people. Those of us in agriculture don’t like to show our fears or sadness. We work in a business that relies on Mother Nature every day. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” is not lost on us. In production agriculture, we just deal with it. Is that the best thing? Nope. But it’s how it is. And I likely won’t change it. So it means that even in the dry years, even when we can’t directly see that there might be something eating at a person, we need to remember things aren’t always as they seem.

Send the cookies, say the thank you, give the support even when you don’t think someone needs it. Those gestures are what gain trust and respect, no need to save them for a rainy day.