Market Gut Shot Alert

           Farmers here have never seen anything like this weather.  Mildest Winter they ever had, strangest rainfall for some time, and now hottest June 27, 28, 29, 30 ..... ever, or whatever the string of days was, together with the worst growing season drought anybody can remember.  Drove to Alabama for the 4th, finding the corn and bean crops either destroyed or all but, though the cotton fields were a robust deep green and the former farmer driving had no idea what was going on with that.  Early corn and early beans here look equally messed up, but a bean crop on our road planted maybe 2 weeks ago is still in that very early sprouting stage where it survives well for a while under almost any conditions.  All we grow commercially down here is beans (what soybeans are called) and corn, so its ruination time again.  Didn't see a single farmer at the rodeo, whatever that specifically means, and the crowd was mighty thin for the only thing to do on a Friday night in Logano, Tennessee, at least by what are now our personal historical standards. 

           Lawns, including ours, look mostly brown, and up close you can see it's really some brown and some green everywhere, only the patches that look kind of green have a higher proportion of green, is all, and they're loaded with brown too.  Fescue is hay color out in our pastures, the first time that's ever happened, though still green around the septic system, which is the only grass we've got that needs mowing, only it isn't getting any out of our not wanting to hurt the other grass's feelings any worse than the weatherman's already done to the poor little brown and green things.

           Neighbor diagonally across the street added a new herd of paints, so we're probably at the point where owners are forced to give horses away because everyone anticipates not being able to buy hay for them next winter and the big ranchers have already had to take steps that will cut off everyone else's supply.  Situation got there a few years ago, and hay had to be trucked in from states like Indiana, we think it was, which must end up being really, really expensive as none of these large farm animals ever seem to stop eating, 24/7 near as we can tell.  Sandy, the golden, kind of, palomino in our pasture, only stops eating to crap or gallop, according to actual observation.  Silly creature eats while it walks for goodness sakes.  Strolling to its next meal from its last one, shamelessly chomping on munchies while it gets there.


           Who can afford to pay for that kind of lifestyle if all them vittles ain't gonna be popping up out of the ground on some kind of regular basis?  Seriously.

           Manager at our gym reports cattle standing in empty lakes up north of town, trying to figure out where to get a refreshing drink, and the TVA flood control people warned on Channel 4 that they're about to lose it due to abnormally high water temperatures, and expect to sideline two nuclear power facilities if conditions don't get better because the water spurting down from their great big dammed lake can't cool off the reactors when the lake's water temperature gets higher than some number it's about to hit.


           Thing is, the agricultural ruination is being repeated in states all over the country as well as, we're told by those same Channel 4 people, Central America and some other continent, Africa maybe.  There aren't all that many continents out there, so you could probably look the right one up, if you wanted to.


           Whole thing's got us and everybody else looking for a massive spike in food prices, ergo overall inflation, ergo another market gut shot whenever the Crime Families figure out how to best screw their customers over with the agricultural ruination scenario.

           GET US OUT OF THIS STEPHEN KING NOVEL, SOMEBODY.


           PLEEEEASE.