Rain, rain and more rain

Gene has about ten or fifteen acres of Tifton 44 getting rained on right now. That, my friends, is an exceedingly rare occurrence. He's pretty canny and watches the weather real close when he starts mowing. I've thought back as far as I can remember and I don't ever recall him getting any of his hay wet before.

I'm wondering if'in this is maybe some kind of inherited curse, 'cause the field in question is one he's got leased from Farrell's brother. See, back when poor ole Farrell was still farming, there was a stretch of several years where he didn't bale any hay that hadn't been rained on at least once. Even the years where we had a drought...

Bad luck and poor maintenance seemed to always insure that it either rained before he could bale, or that something would break which required parts that had to ordered. So naturally by the time the parts came in, it was raining.

We had a pretty good dry spell the year after he quit farming. As I recollect, it only rained twice in a three month stretch. I heard a rumor that some of the neighbors wanted to take up a collection to give 'im so he'd go out and mow a few passes around the field and see if we could get some rain.