MISQUAH — The last measurable rain in Misquah fell on August 25, which was the Tuesday of the planning board meeting, and there has been none since — twenty-eight days as of this morning, the longest dry stretch here since September of 2021 and the fourth-longest in the records the co-op has kept since 1978.

The lawns quit three weeks ago. The gardens are being watered by people who announced in July that they were finished watering. What has changed in the last week is that the conversation has moved from lawns to wells.

“I have had four calls,” said the well driller who covers this end of the county and who asked that his name not be used because he says he cannot keep up with the work he already has. “Nobody is out of water. Three of the four have a pump running longer than it did in June, which is what you would expect and is not the same as a problem. The fourth one I am going out to look at.”

Fire danger has been posted HIGH on the County 12 sign for two weeks and open burning permits remain suspended. Chief Sundberg reports two grass fires this month, both along road shoulders, both put out by the people who found them before the department arrived, and both — he asks that this be printed exactly — “started by something somebody threw out a window.”

The DNR has the area in moderate drought, one step above the abnormally dry designation it carried through August. The practical effects at this level are the ones being felt: low stock ponds, a hard corn harvest coming, and a woods that is quiet underfoot in a way grouse hunters have found both convenient and unsettling.

The forecast has had rain on it for nine days running and has moved it four times. It presently shows a chance Sunday. Tim Brevik’s position, offered at the cleaning station and reprinted here with his consent, is that he will believe it when the boards on his dock are dark.

The corn is the other thing, and it is not being said loudly yet. A dry September finishes a corn crop fast and finishes it light, and two growers on County 6 have told this newspaper they expect to be in the field a week to ten days earlier than usual and to like the moisture and not the yield. Neither wanted a number printed. “Ask me in three weeks,” one said, which is what farmers say, and which is fair.

What the dry has been good for: the grouse woods are quiet underfoot, the fair grounds dried out in a day after the derby, and the road crews have had the best month for shoulder work anybody can remember, which the county engineer mentioned to this newspaper unprompted and with some feeling, having spent August looking at the Hagen entrance.