We have people in a few places here too who take credit for making it rain. The local 'Hallelujah Chorus' in Singleton used to make it known they were praying for rain.
And Lo! If they kept at it long enough.... around 3 years was their poorest effort... it did eventually rain. And the rejoicing would be plentiful and the word that they had saved the town was passed around and verily they preened and strutted and renewed their door knocking for converts mightily.
I don't think they fooled anyone but themselves but it didn't matter, everyone else was happy too just get their feet wet again so they could start whinging about the mud instead of the dust.
There was a quaint, mock prayer/ saying, mainly in rural areas, that cracked me up. It was addressed to the sky, sometimes in the middle of a conversation in the street about the front yard's dying Dahlias, and sometimes, in deadly earnest and reverent tones by farmers with their hat in their hands.
"Send 'er down Hughie!" No one knew how we learned that God's name was Hughie, and it was only ever used after a fair stretch of drought, but like the more formal rituals of rain praying it had the same effect, .... eventually.
Hughie was used in another turn of phrase that described a suspiciously fortuitous fire in a well insured business that was going belly up.
Suspected 'lucky' arson that was hard to prove was termed "Hughie's Stocktake."
That 'luck' has been quite prevalent in recent years in failing manufacturing business' warehouses, but the phrase seems to have died out with our parents' generation. Pity, it was a goodun.
Commiserations California, been there, done that, water restrictions are a PIA ! Learn to love brown grass. It doesn't have to be mown and everyone else's will be the same if they aren't cheating on the water allowance so there's no disgrace in it. You'll get used to it and learn to love it, we have.
Our most iconic poem, guaranteed to tear us up in foreign lands, is about 'The Wide Brown Land.'
PS, a 10 day rain forecast? We used to get 6 month forecasts! The most accurate, almost mystic, rain guru used to predict it in years!
He figured it from the Sun cycles and other planetary cycles, he was scientific about it, not an astrologer by any means.
I well remember one drought breaker he predicted to the week, 18 months away. And he was spot on! You may like to contact him, he can do better than 10 days.
