As I write this entry late on Friday night, (May 9), snow continues to fall in Carpio. It's been snowing here for almost six hours now, but fortunately most of it is melting as it hits the ground. As it stands, there's about two inches of accumulation, but I suspect it will be gone by mid morning.

More importantly than the snow, it started raining about 10 a.m., this morning so there has been precipitation of some sort since then. Precipitation that we so desperately needed. I never thought I'd ever say I was happy to see snow, but this time around, it felt pretty darn good. I was outside when the rain began changing to snow and it was almost like a picturesque late autumn evening.

But this is May, a month that is supposed to be much warmer. But it's also North Dakota. I've seen snow in May many times in my life. Maybe not this heavy, but I've seen it before. I've also seen it snow as late as May 26, which is really odd.

We'll take it. It was so dry here that soil in the fields was just powder, almost like talcum powder. It was beginning to get really scary.

Last Sunday Ilene and I planted potatoes in a sustained 40-mile-per-hour wind and a couple days before that, I planted onions and leeks in a sustained 40-mile-per-hour wind. It was brutal and it took a week, but we finally got some relief from this extreme drought we've been dealing with.

It had been July 9, 2007 when we last had measurable precipitation. That day we received 1.50 inches. Today, the weater service said .40 inch, but they are going to be off a bit since they took their readings about 7 p.m. It's just short of midnight now and it is snowing as heavy as it has all night so I'm guessing we'll have an inch by morning.

That ought to jump start the peas that have been in the ground since April 23. It's also going to be a godsend for our garlic that is popping up all over the place but has little moisture below the mulch that protected it all winter.

This rain (40 percent chance) is going to make everyone happy, at least for a while. It sure changed my perspective on the 2008 growing season back to one of optimism.

It's amazing, the power of nature.