It's not only dry conditions farmers have to deal with - sometimes it is dangerously shaky ones.
As light rain fell last Thursday I thought about the farmers and the firefighters ... and the thousands effectively stranded at the cricket of course.
But at the end of the day the rain that fell barely made a dent on the dry landscapes across the Bay.
It did look good there for a while - grey skies and steady rain and everything was looking glistening and wet.
I took the optimistic view that "it must be doing something" but despite the best efforts of the clouds and their contents everything just went back to looking like a parched scene from one of those spaghetti westerns set in Mexico.
The grass purely had a sniff of what it would take to become a greenie again ... and went back to lying dry ... but not high.
Funny though ... the weeds still seem to emerge all green and enthusiastic whatever the weather.
And so I thought of the farmers and what that showery few hours last week would have meant.
And for the firefighters who must drive to work to start their shifts and glance across at the desperately dry and accordingly dangerous pastures and forests which surround us.
One spark and she's all on.
While that light but steady rain did eliminate the fire danger it really only eliminated it for the time it fell because within 12 hours there was little evidence water had descended.
It did (fleetingly) look great to see dark soil instead of dusty dry stuff, but Mother Nature returned things to what this season has been normal on this side of the island.
The big dry.
For the farming community it is another hurdle to face and overcome, and they have been doing that since the very first fences went up to house the very first sheep brought in to house the pastures.
It is either drought or it is a rain storm which wreaks havoc by flooding fields, access roads and blowing the banks of creeks and rivers.
The farming fraternity face what are accurately dubbed "extremes" and that is part and parcel of the industry.
One farmer simply told me "you just have to accept it and get on with it" ... which of course is easier said than done.
So they store the feed the best they can and source water the best they can, and sell off stock when it becomes clear it is going to be tricky to sustain them.
That rain went nowhere, and one can only hope that forecast rain for today does eventuate and does do a spot of soaking into the soil.
But for how long?
Yep, it's tough when your life and livelihood revolves around the land because nature dictates the terms.
As does the geography of the planet in some cases.
When the earthquake, and the following jolts, hammered across North Canterbury last November it toppled buildings and tore up roads but it also tore open parts of the landscape.
For the folks running a big farm down that way at that time there were no issues with floods or droughts so all was going pretty well.
But it would be fair to say no one really considers the effects of an earthquake.
It's not just the damage they can cause to buildings and grounds and power supplies, it's also the damage they can cause to a person's state of mind.
They are frightening and unpredictable, and yes, they can trouble the farming community just as much as the urban commercial and residential communities.
So it is kind of fitting that this unpredictable additional menace to the farming landscape is focused upon in the return of the longest-running television show in this land - Country Calendar.
It looks at how the farming family and colleagues dealt with the big earthquake which changed everything for them overnight.
● Country Calendar, TV1 at 7pm Sunday: This programme is a true television stalwart and has never failed to make a mark on the ratings charts.
Crikey, it first went to air in 1966 which means it is into its 51st year of running.
That is remarkable in this otherwise throwaway age.
As it has always done it is about the people at the heart of the rural regions, and in this case the way they reacted and responded to a devastating earthquake.
ON THE BOX
● The Theory of Everything, TV3 at 8.55pm Saturday: Saturday night is traditionally awash with feature films, with TV2 a leading example in that it is running four in a row which takes up the schedule from 7pm through to 3.15am the following day.
TV3 has two running across the evening, with this effort arguably the pick of the weekend anywhere because it is an acclaimed piece of filmwork about a very acclaimed man - astrophysicist Stephen Hawking.
He is a brilliant man whose physical life was torn to shreds when he was only young after motor neurone disease set in.
This is about the relationship between him and his first wife Jane who battled with him through those traumatic early years.
Better than average on an otherwise pretty average night.