If there's any sign of rain, Carter drives another quarter-mile to his professional rain gauge. It's a small tube in a big tube. There was a time when he noted down the results collected from three rain gauges. Now he's down to one. If it's rainy, though, his excitement level increases and he might drive out to the gauge three or more times in a day so that not a drop will escape his notebook.
Rain is too important to just write it down, though.
You need to pray for it too, Carter said. He and Betty have attended rain prayer meetings on Thursday nights for nearly two straight years. They have missed only three during that time, because the meetings seem so urgent. The meetings are rotated among participating Fisher County churches. When the meetings are at the Church of Christ, people sing the hymns a cappella.