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Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph..

Mostly clear. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 64F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.

When the first meaningful rain in two weeks splatted down near 4 p.m., where was I?

I got caught a good 300 yards from the house, trying to eke out one more circuit on a riding mower around the left-to-grow field below our pond.

With gasoline costing around $5 a gallon, my wife and I decided we should scrimp on gasoline. The recent mini-drought saved us even more mower gas money.

Our normally green yard and fields turned straw-tan and crunched beneath our feet during most of this month. Back on July 2, we had a soaking three-quarters of an inch of rain. Since then ... piffle! My diary notes four occasions in July when rain had been forecasted. The moisture-bearing clouds split on the way here from Lake Erie, going north, going south or looping west-south-east ... giving us nothing.

Happily, our homestead stands little chance of running out of water altogether. Our hand-dug well, just 25 feet deep, has run dry on two occasions when some blithering idiot did five laundry loads on the same day that we had house guests with long, long hair who took long, long showers. That hand-dug well is fed by underground springs, a tribute to the innate wisdom of the pioneers of the 1850s who built the core of our house. It rebounds within a day or so.

Still, we got anxious enough to make two moves. First, we had a 1,000-gallon cistern buried where the old springhouse had been, so that it is fed by that same spring. Inventive plumbing arrangements allow us to feed water into the house either from the well’s jet pump in our basement or from the submersible pump inside the cistern that sits about 100 feet from the house.

My wife uses water from the cistern to water our garden and large-potted tomato and other plants along the back wall of the house. That eases the strain on the well.

Our second move was to have that half-acre pond carved out of a lower field about 200 yards below the house. Without treatment, the pond water is not safe for drinking or cooking. But it can be used on plants and shrubs, as water for the chickens, dogs and cats (they drink it anyway, whether we bring it to them or not), or, in a real emergency, strained and boiled as drinking water.

Neighbors have run out of water in the 20 years we have lived here. That is no fun. Sometimes, fire departments can bring truckloads to dump into wells. But that doesn’t always work with older wells.

I cringe at the stories coming out of the American West, where real years-long drought is devastating entire communities. Famine follows droughts. Much of the drought-stricken American land is vital cropland.

In west-central Pennsylvania during my nearly 80 years of living hereabouts, we have had only two or three dry spells that got the Weather Service designation of “drought.” Those same winds that bring winter’s blizzards, snow and ice slashing southeast from Lake Erie or coming due east from the vicinity of Chicago and Lake Michigan usually carry enough warm-months moisture to keep our fields and woodlots at least dappled in green and tan.

On Sunday, those first large splattering drops were welcome even if they did get me soaked by the time I putted back to the barn, berthed the mower and actually ran full-tilt over the last 100 yards to the porch. That run is creaky due to my ravaged knees, balky hips and geriatric gait.

Sunday, Yogi made that final run downright dangerous.

Our three-month-old pup, a Lab/Aussie mix, thought it would be such fun to gambol about as I ran, elbows flailing and head down in a vain attempt to keep my eyeglasses from blurring.

He gamboled between my right foot and my left foot.

I didn’t fall flat down, but passing motorists might have commented sadly, “Drunk again, is he?” as I staggered, hopped, tripped and taught Yogi a few clearly non-puppy words.

But we made it to the shelter of the porch and sat there snuggling while I tried to restore normal breathing and impart a calm demeanor that might prevent Yogi from panicking during bright lightning and loud thunder.

That is probably a forlorn hope. Most of our previous dogs were frightened by thunderstorms. I am not frightened per se, but I do hunch my shoulders when the heavens roil mightily. I’ll try to avoid that around Yogi.

Sunday’s moisture was eagerly welcomed, with or without the sound effects and light shows. Another half-inch came atop the quarter-inch that halted my mowing. That won’t erase the month-long rain deficit. It will require more money for mower gasoline, but that is OK. Our springs have been replenished.

Plenty of folks out West would happily trade places with us.

Denny Bonavita is a former editor/publisher at newspapers in DuBois, Brookville, New Bethlehem and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: notniceman9@gmail.com

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