Too much dry weather

While the Midwest is suffering the consequences of too much rain, again, we haven't had any significant rainfall in weeks (I should say weeks and weeks). In the last six weeks, we've maybe had 3/4 to an inch of rain where we live in Upstate South Carolina, way less than 'normal.'

The natural areas up in the mountains look stressed, for lack of normal summer rain, which often is afternoon thundershowers.

We don't live in a Mediterranean climate, normally, but maybe we need to garden like we do.

Even some of my drought tolerant herbs are drooping from lack of moisture. I can still water, since we're not under a watering ban, but the local lakes/reservoirs are lower around the edges than we've ever seen them, in the 15-odd years we've lived here.

Someone mentioned to me recently that 'they' -- that is, the Drought Emergency team for South Carolina -- didn't want to alarm people -- uh, hello-- we're in a significant drought, and why aren't we being asked in any significant way to conserve water? Our neighboring states have been much pro-active, but personally, I think we're all still thinking that we might return to 'normal rainfall' times, when we're really experiencing historic drought conditions.

And, probably, long periods of summer drought are here to stay.