Rain!

     A local joke says, “That time it rained forty days and forty nights, Karval got an inch and a half.”

     Nobody is laughing about flood jokes in Northern Colorado and the Front Range right now as the area tries to recover from flood damage and it is still raining.  However, here is what my rain gauges say:

     Just about an inch and a half in the cheap (make that ‘free’) gauge.  The inner tube of the fancy gauge equals one inch.  You empty the inner tube and pour in the spill-over to get an accurate measure.  I haven’t done that yet, but it will be in the range of an inch and a half.  That is cumulative from last Wednesday.

     We made a trip to Ogallala, Nebraska Saturday.  We supped in Sterling where we watched the weather radar blasting once again Northern Colorado.  The radio warned of road closures and evacuations in Fort Morgan due to flooding of the Platte, soon to reach Brush and then Sterling.

    It was a bit unnerving as we left Sterling in the dark with periods of heavy rain, but we reached Brush well ahead of the high water and came south.  The farther south we got, the lighter the rain.  A few miles into Lincoln County and the roads were dry, the windshield wipers retired, and the moon went from peeking through the clouds to full frontal nudity.

    One time I told a joke to a group around the coffee pot during a slack time at the brain factory.  “What is the state tree of North Dakota?  Telephone pole.”

     Up and spake an eldern voice of the bus mechanic, formerly a travelling salesman for a local machinery exporter:  “What’s a guy from Limon, Colorado doing telling a joke like that?”

    The perfect squelch.

    My political-correctness conscience has to kick in.  I should apologize to Karval or change the proper noun to Eastern Colorado, even though that wouldn’t be quite true, either, as points east of us have had much better moisture this summer than we have.  Warning:  Telling jokes may be hazardous to your self-esteem.

     Meanwhile, back to the ranch, now if it will just dry up a bit, I can get my wheat planted.  Farmers are never satisfied. Another joke:

    The young farmer brought the doctor to attend his wife at the birth of his first child.  Making conversation, the doctor asked, “What would you like me to bring you in the way of a child?”

   The farmer said he wanted a boy, and if it could be arranged, he’d like to be sure his heart would be in farming.

     Much later, the doctor came out of the bedroom where the birth took place and said, “Well, you got both your wishes, I think.  You have a healthy son.”

    “Oh thank you doctor!”  And after he thought a while he said, “How do you know he is a farmer at heart?”

    “He’s lying on his butt screaming his head off.”