Drought 2018?

Today my very not favourite farmer did the teddying of the cut silage on the field next to our property for the 4th time this year.
#1  28th April
#2 2nd June
#3 25th June
Somewhat in contrast to the problems even the normally wet and lush UK West Country farmers and our own Blip contractor is lacking work with little or no second cut silage to do.

Even though today the 4th blistering day in a row, there are in places around copious amounts of thunderstorms. Heard that just 20km from here there had been a massive downpour last night. The horse field that got slurried against my wishes on Monday is indeed looking very miserable and even Angie is now worried and spending an hour or two trying vainly with a hosepipe to wash some of it away. I could hitch up our large petrol water pump and attach the firehose reels and spray head using the groundwater in our horse stables cellar but at the moment I would prefer to have it as a reserve in case of fire. We are after all right alongside the forest and even if there is no acute forest fire warning, it is comforting. We do also have the swimming pool as a reserve but the water now at 30°C is hardly cooling even if it remains wet!

Just as in the UK, the more north you go so do the drought problems. I saw a cereal field and combine harvester burnt out somewhere in England on Sky News. There have been several such incidents in northern Germany, flintstones taken up into the combine and the sparks igniting the innards. Also, the farmers now having to use grass fodder that was meant for winter and even a shortage of straw as the cereal crop is shorter than normal. I even heard on the radio this evening that here several electricity plants have had to shut down as there isn't enough cooling water in the rivers and even in the Rhine there is a real danger of mass fish death as the water temperature reaches a critical mark of 27°C.

In the extra a collage of some of the scenes around here:
Top Left: Straw amount looks good
Top Middle: A maize head (stem had been ripped out by a reversing combine)
Top Right: Newly sown field already shimmering green.

Bottom Left: Thunderstorm brewing in the Alps and then will move north.
Bottom Middle: Weeds growing too! Using scythe to clear in front of beehives. (Strimmer=Stings!)
Bottom Right: As my daughter described them - Greek cats not disturbed by my swimming.