We’ve been mired here along the Texas Panhandle Caprock in this hideous drought.

Dry land farmers can’t grow crops, given that they depend on rainfall to irrigate their land.

It’s been tough around here for, oh, about four years.

So, when the weather forecasters keep harping on the prospects for rain, well, we want to believe them. Heaven knows they keep saying it’ll change, that moisture will return eventually. We want to believe them, but the longer we went without any relief, the harder it has become to put faith in their words.

That has changed in the past day or two.

Wednesday produced the first actual thunderstorm I can remember in a good while in our Amarillo neighborhood. More of it came today. The rain gauge hasn’t moved much yet, but it’s gotten pretty wet out there.

I ran some errands today, visited with folks and overheard others talking about, that’s right, the rain. Nothing else. No politics. I didn’t hear much about the VA scandal, or the upcoming Texas elections, or whether Hillary Clinton will run for president in two years.

Rain. That was the topic.

I ventured out this morning and so help me I thought the birds were chattering with more gusto than I’ve heard them for as long as I can remember.

Do we want the kind of rain that has flooded other parts of the state or the country? No thanks, of course. But some more of this moisture surely gives us something more pleasant to discuss with our friends and neighbors than what we’re getting out of Austin or Washington.