How many apps? Really?

There’s nothing like “the incorrect” climate to get conversations going.

Right now, “dry” is the incorrect climate in our part of the USA — plants aren’t growing, hay is scarce, and manufacturers are checking their cattle with the “if this keeps up, it’s one of the ones it is gonna go” look in their eyes. Even with the awful forecasts, we managed to get fun out of ourselves for the ultimate week at a tractor trek. The trek started in the town and headed out to a close-by lake,

so oldsters could hold out for a piece before heading lower back into Metropolis. The prevent changed into pretty a lot business as usual, with anyone checking out each other’s rigs, catching up a bit, and — what else? — talking about the dry, windy climate and the clouds pretending to form overhead.

We would observe the skies, look at the thermometer, and concentrate on the weather reports on the AM station. Not nowadays. Instead, we all whipped out our smartphones and began tapping the screens. There were a few eye-rolling and true-natured ribbing in our little group about the number of weather apps on our phones as we compared notes and argued their merits.

Seriously — if the simplest one changed into the excellent, why did everyone within the organization have at least three climate apps? And it turned out we have been slackers. I located out later that a hurricane-chasing pal has SIX. And lots are available to select from if you want some extra.

Oddly enough, all that tech communication jogged my memory of when our daughter’s words, no longer mine, got her using allow sooner or later. She was given in the back of the antique’s wheel to choose as much as forced us domestic, so she requested where the cruise manipulate changed. Her clever-mouthed mama advised her, “inside the driving force’s seat.”

I let her feel alongside the side of the seat for a few minutes, searching for the elusive button or knob she’d been looking for at the dash and the steering column, earlier than I added, “with the dishwasher.”

When she figured it out, she became the cruise manager because we did not have a dishwasher. Guess she inherited her stink-eye from me.

OK, that changed into more than a few years returned. But we have still come to a long manner, child. When something needs doing, you can nearly guarantee there is an app for that. Would you trust the Texas A&M Extension website has a list of seventy-nine agriculture apps? And that is only a starting line — many more are on extension providers and other age-associated web websites.

Yes, we reminisce approximately the good old days, but that doesn’t imply we need to return to them. A properly-advanced app from a dependable source saves time and reduces the “human component” while our brains are overworked, or are too tired to think directly, especially while math is worried.

The instantaneous gratification factor is notable — apps are much faster than browsing tables and charts, reviewing information, and making calculations. But it feels strange to faucet my cell phone screen in preference to thumbing through the pages of that acquainted yellow Old Farmer’s Almanac.