By Gene Hall

I haven’t lived on the farm for 40 years, but I am still at heart a “farm boy.” 

Nothing that’s happened in my life could squeeze that out of me. And, for an old farm boy, there is not a more beautiful sight than the torrents of rain that battered my windshield as I drove to work yesterday. Add that precipitation to the 2 inches I poured from the rain gauge the night before and you have “significant rainfall,” enough to soak into our parched land and produce runoff for our sadly low ponds, tanks, lakes and rivers.

By Gene Hall

You can’t really appreciate a rain unless it comes in the midst of a drought or even one significant enough to break a drought. The blessed moisture that fell from the sky this past weekend, Oct. 8-9, was the former. No drought breaker this rain. The epic drought in Texas of 2011 is still with us, but this rain was welcome just the same.

By Mike Barnett

I poured two inches out of my rain gauge this morning. I thanked the Lord, as I’m sure did everyone who received moisture this week. This Texas drought is devastating.

Those the rains missed—the majority of Texans—continue to pray for rain. But they curse the weatherman.

Weathermen are the Rodney Daingerfields of television news. Respect is something they only dream about.

Too wet? The weatherman said it would be dry.

Too dry?  The weatherman said it was going to rain.

Too hot, too cold, too windy, too cloudy, not cloudy enough…you guessed right, it’s the weatherman’s fault.

By Mike Barnett

Texans have looked into the eye of a firestorm this spring as wildfires ravage the Lone Star State.

Nearly 2 million acres have charred as severe drought tightens its grip. Howling winds and soaring temperatures contribute to a tenuous situation.

Firefighters have died, houses have burned, livestock has been killed and livelihoods have been lost. Fire crews continue desperate battles in parts of Texas. There is no relief in sight.

Yet, even as ranchers struggle to save their land, homes and cattle, they have not given way to despair. It will rain. Someday. And when it does, Mother Nature will give back what she took away.