Whether Wythards

"How much time do you think we have?" asked Tammy.
"This one's moving pretty slow, probably half an hour," I responded.
"Huh, we can try to put those lettuce transplants in then," she said.
"It'll be a little muddy, but it's only going to get muddier," I grumbled. "Let's go."

As farmers, we are in fascinated by the weather.  As farmers, we are motivated by the weather.  As farmers, we are often at the mercy of the weather.  And, as farmers, we weather the weather.

The thing that amazes me most is that the weather is actually very rarely completely unfriendly to those who are diversified growers.  Now, I also have to admit that the weather is also rarely perfect for us, but that is beside the point.  We could successfully argue that this past season was a completely unfriendly season, but the evidence would tell us that we are incorrect.  Many of our perennial crops, such as apples, berries and asparagus did very well.  The broiler chickens and turkeys sized up and the taste of the meat has been exceptional.  Egg production stayed very consistent all season long.  The garlic was a little smaller than usual, but turned out just fine.  Half of the onion crop was really nice.  We had some decent summer squash, zucchini and cucumber.  In short, there were good things that happened, even if the whole body of work balanced out on the negative for the year.

One of the things we are considering this January is how we, the Genuine Faux Farm farmers, are going to respond to the climate and the resulting weather patterns we are likely to see from this point onward.  There is no escaping the fact that we must pay attention to the weather if we want to raise produce and poultry.  There is no good way to predict exactly what we will encounter and it is perfectly clear that whatever the weather is, it will impact what we do and how well things go.  But, one thing is clear to me.  Our world still provides what we need to be successful farmers, we just need to prepare to use what we have responsibly and we need to take a longer view than the next succession of lettuce.

But don't worry.  I'm sure your farmers will grumble about the weather multiple times in the coming season.  It's normal.  If you consider that weather systems are sometimes akin to an alarm clock (hurry up, plant that lettuce!) you might have sympathy for the grumpy farmer.  After all, wasn't it you who knocked your alarm clock to the floor this morning?