After spending nine days earlier this month in Europe with stops in four countries, Hubby and I can testify that the drought and heat waves we’ve experienced this summer have been shared throughout that continent as well.

When we arrived in Hessen on Aug. 31 temperatures in Kassel were in the mid- to upper-80s, something almost unheard of in Germany. Walking from the train to our hotel it was a shock to see lawns and gardens a crisp brown, rather than the soft green I remembered from my time as an exchange student there.

The bride’s host father had planted canola the third week in August and by the wedding only 30 percent had emerged as there had been hardly any rain all month. Likewise, corn grown for biogas production and for silage had quickly gone brown in the withering heat. Silage cutting had already begun the week we arrived and was proceeding at a fast pace to obtain what feed value and gas production they could before the plants died. This was at least two weeks ahead of normal. Irrigation in Germany is rare, so producers had few alternatives to protect their crops.

The concerns among livestock producers there are similar to those here about forage supplies for the winter, as there hadn’t been enough rain in most areas to produce more than one good cutting of hay, when normally there are two to three.

In Waldeck, which sits on the Eder River, the Edersee was as low as it has been since the dam was built between 1908 and 1914. The reservoir is used primarily for shipping navigation and also for flood control, recreation and hydroelectric production.

It is only at 13 percent of capacity this month and there are major concerns about shipping through the Weser River as releases from the dam are used to regulate the shipping lanes. This summer the remnants of three villages (Asel, Bringhausen, and Berich) and a bridge across the original riverbed submerged when the lake was filled in 1914 can be seen.

After the wedding we traveled to Upper Bavaria to visit another friend and her husband who farm along the Czech border and also have land in the Czech Republic.

It was much the same story, a terribly dry summer that parched fields, lawns and gardens. They had caught a decent rain on Aug. 19, so their canola was up, and a stand established, but more rain was needed to give it a good start before winter sets in.

I was relieved to see a post from Jean on Friday that they had received 2.5 inches of rain over the past two days, so they had finally had a break in the hot, dry weather.

From Hatzenreuth we traveled to Riemst, Belgium, to visit still another farmer who is a friend of Don’s through an international agriculture Twitter group. Hendrik and his wife, Anita, had stopped to visit us four years ago and insisted we stop to see them when they heard we would be coming for the wedding.

Belgium has been equally hot and dry this year and again the crops reflected the lack of moisture. However, Hendrik is a rare one in his area, as he has adopted minimum and no-till practices on his fields. Last year was a dry one as well in Belgium and while his neighbors struggled to produce a crop, his corn held on with the reserved moisture in his ground and produced a fairly decent crop.

The reserved moisture is paying off again this year. While yields won’t be outstanding, they will be acceptable, and the tillage practices are starting to draw inquiries from his neighbors.

Don had told Hendrik he would try his best to bring him some rain and as we were pulling into the hotel parking lot the night of my birthday thundershowers moved in. A nice half inch of rain fell that night and the day we left Europe it was raining again in Belgium.