Nothin' but gray skies

I'm getting tired of dry overcast days. There are breaks in the clouds every now and then that remind us of what we're missing: the sun. It's not as bad as I make it sound, but for the past week or so it feels as though the permanent color of the sky is gray. Sometimes it's dark like a well used blackboard that's been freshly erased. Sometimes it's lighter, almost milky. And there has been no rain.

Neatly trimmed grape vines under a cloudy sky.

Yes, we did have rain a little less than two weeks ago. I measured forty-three millimeters (a bit more than one and a half inches) of rain in the gauge when it was over. And we got a little more yesterday. But our rainfall this spring has been woefully below normal levels and the drought is deepening across France.

It was nice in April and May. The sun shone brilliantly and it felt like summer. Spring flowers brightened everything and lifted our spirits up and out of winter. It didn't seem to matter that it wasn't raining, even though we knew that it should have been.

But now the mood is different. The news stories remind us daily that farmers are having a difficult time. Crop yields are down and what there is is ready for harvest too early. There's not enough grass to feed the livestock. Water levels in the rivers are down. Necessary irrigation is lowering the water tables even more. And now the sky, like our outlook, has gone from bright and sunny to gray and sullen.

Days on end of gray skies without rain is frustrating. There's no compensation that at least the plants are getting some water; they're not. There's no bright sunshine to make it nice to be outside. In fact, it's not all that warm any more. Just dry. And gray.

It won't last. The sun will come out (do I hear Broadway music?) at some point. Or it will start raining again. But for now, as the summer solstice approaches, we watch and wait under the cool gray roof that nature has pulled over our heads.