Sprinkles, drizzle, downpour, gully washer or toad strangler.

Whatever you call the seemingly ceaseless rain the county has seen so far this spring, the farmers are sick and tired of it.

“The rain is hurting everybody,” said lifelong farmer Evelyn Minteer, who rents her Franklin Township beef and poultry farm to her cousin. “It's bad.”

She explained that farmers need two or three rain-free days to cut hay and let it lie in the field to dry before baling it.

She said planting the corn that feeds her farm's beef cattle — as well as a soybean crop — was a challenge due to the wet weather. Minteer hopes the plants will make it through the deluge.

“I got them in between the rain drops,” she said. “So far, it looks OK, but if it keeps raining I don't know what's going to happen.”

Minteer was unable to plant hay, and worries about planting it so late in the season.

She recalls a week of heavy rain when the remnants of Hurricane Agnes affected the area in 1972.

“But I don't remember it hanging on like this and not giving us any break,” Minteer said.

She said the online Farmers Almanac is predicting wet weather until July 15.

“I'm just praying to God that it straightens out and gets nice, so we can get something done,” Minteer said.

Alan Davis of Davis Dairy in Donegal Township said due to the steady rain, he was only able to plant half of the 300 acres of corn he planned to put in this year.

“The planter can't get it in the ground properly,” Davis said, “and I can't get (the planter) through the fields whenever they're that wet.”

He might not get the other 150 acres planted because the corn would not mature before the end of the growing season, or would mold in the field as it came in.

He might plant soybeans if he can or leave it empty until he can plant fall wheat. Still, Davis bought the corn seed, fertilizer and other supplies on credit and it cannot be returned.

“I'll find a way to pay for it and store it for next year,” he said.

Davis knows a handful of farmers who planted their corn early in May who are now seeing the plants drowning.

“A few people I know had to replant,” he said.

Regarding hay, Davis said he was able to get one cut so far that was of decreased quality due to the number of weeds.

“They grow better in wet weather, so combating weeds is an issue with any crop,” Davis said of his 100 acres of hay.

The 200 acres of soybeans he planted a few weeks ago is starting to come up.

“They need a little bit of dry weather, so they don't swamp out too,” Davis said. “If the field lays with water, they won't be able to grow.”

William Thiele of Thiele Dairy Farm in Jefferson Township was able to plant his corn, hay, soybeans, alfalfa and oats, despite the precipitation.

“Most of it has emerged,” Thiele said.

But because of the moisture, the corn is only half as tall as it should be.

Most of his crops are used to feed his 80 head of cattle and the rest is typically sold to local feed mills. If the 2019 crops fail, the expense of buying feed for his cattle would be added to his budget.

Thiele explained that if his crops fail because of rain, he can apply for “prevent plant,” which is a section of his crop insurance covering weather conditions that prevent planting.

“In an extreme case like we've had this year, we may have to do it,” he said.

The amount farmers are paid by their insurance companies depends on the amount of coverage purchased.

“It's similar to car insurance,” Thiele said.

The lifelong farmer said that the past four years or so have been bad weather wise.

Thiele said because of last year's wet spring, crops were planted and harvested later than normal.

“We were harvesting crops clear into December,” Thiele recalled. “The fall was wet too.”

He hopes conditions improve. “It's just bad all the way around,” Thiele said.

Jim Boldy, who rents his 60-acre Winfield Township farm to a man who grows pumpkins and sweet corn, said only about one-fourth of the plants are in the ground due to the weather.

“Right now, you could run a canoe across the farm, that's how bad it is,” Boldy said.

He explained that sweet corn is planted weekly, so it can be continuously harvested in late summer and fall and taken to market. The inability to plant some weeks affects the continuity of sales.

“Now you have a space where you can't have corn at your stand,” Boldy said.

He said while last spring was wet, this year is worse because two or three inches of rain, instead of a half-inch, falls at a time.

“It's overwhelming,” Boldy said.

He said haymaking is at a standstill because hay cannot be planted in ground that is too wet to walk through.

The 10 acres of hay he managed to plant is getting too mature, Boldy said, and the quality of the final product will suffer if he doesn't cut it in the next week or two.

He said hay left in the field too long loses its leaves, which is where the protein is.

“It gets stemmy, and that's no good,” Boldy said.

The longtime farmer counsels his peers to avoid getting too stressed out over the weather.

“Just say a prayer because He's in charge, not us,” Boldy said.

Fred McCullen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh, empathized with the county's farmers.

He said Pittsburgh's rainfall so far in 2019 is 21.5 inches.

“That's four inches above normal,” McCullen said.

Surprisingly, the area had even more precipitation at this time last year.

“We're still about three inches below last year,” he said.

Scattered rain storms and showers are predicted until Friday, when the rain could disappear until Sunday.

But farmers who do not want to get their machinery stuck in the field should note that heavy rain is predicted for Thursday night.

The farmers agreed that late June is the latest crops can be planted to mature successfully by the end of the growing season.