If we could have afforded less acres but irrigation, or live in an area that gets more rain, less drought conditions, obviously we would have chose that.

Most days, it is bone dry and you're really watching the weather hoping you're going to get some rain.

This is only the second snow that we've gotten with the wind.

It just blows all of the snow that we do get away or dries things out super fast.

So even the moisture that we do get doesn't really soak into the ground.

We raise animals that are pastured, and right now our pastures are terrible because we can't get any moisture.

The alfalfa is really the primary source of grass that they get right now.

When we first started doing this, I mean, the price of hay for just a standard little square bale was like 6 or $7.

It's $12 now.

We just don't want to over graze until we can get the natural grass is coming back, hopefully on a regular basis with just Mother Nature's assistance.

Northern Larimer County northern Weld County on the U.S. Drought Monitor.

They currently show up in D3, which is the extreme drought category.

That is something that is supposed to happen only like one out of 20 years.

So maybe not the absolute worst that you've ever seen, but still quite bad.

Even the biggest rain event maybe lasts a few days, but then it's over, right?

Drought is a lot more insidious.

It gets going and you really never quite know when it's going to end.

Not too frozen today, so it's not as thick.

But as you can see, in order for them to drink, I've got to break up the ice.

So all of that layer just went to waste.

There's just so many unknowns and things you can't plan for.

You know, my grandparents had a a farm out in Weld County, and they're well dried up.

And they had to re dig another.

Well and you know that that's an option for a while.

But what if it gets to the point where, where we can't really dig wells?

What if the water levels are so low that that we don't have any water period.

That's scary.

We're we're in this full time, and sometimes we wonder why we do it and whether we should quit between not having any time being so tired and the expense of it all, but brings a lot of satisfaction to to know that we're raising healthy food and healthy animals and happy animals and providing for our community as well as our family.