By JON KLAVERKAMP

By JON KLAVERKAMP

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

Good riddance to April. Who needs it?

All the people in Rappahannock surely looked the other way on Tuesday night when April parted. After all, the stingy month gave nothing to this county.

April was cruel, hitting early and hard with a freeze on the 9th and 10th that, according to one farmer, killed every peach he had within five hours. Talk about hitting below the belt.

The verdict among area peach growers is unanimous: there will be precious few peaches in the county.

Was April satisfied with that early knockout punch? Hardly. Midway through the month, it became obvious that April had another weapon in its arsenal: water, of which the county got none... .well, almost none.

As of Saturday, April’s rainfall in Rappahannock County was 1.04 inches, said weather observer Dennis Wingfield. The figures for 1984 and 1983 at the same time were 5.17 and 9.3 inches respectively.

April also brought unseasonably warm weather. The month’s average temperature was about 7 degrees above normal, said Wingfield, who noted that this April was the second warmest on his record.

Rappahannock’s extension agent Birgitt Thornhill said people are worried about a repeat of last year’s hot and dry summer. “It might be worse this year,” she said. “The heat is hitting earlier.”

Thornhill predicted that the first hay harvest will be late and smaller than usual. “There will be some loss, but hopefully it will be made up in the second cutting.”

Bill Oliver of Woodville said the first hay harvest will be “very severely reduced,” adding that “we’ll have something, but nothing near normal. ”

When the season starts off this dry, the chances of having a poor harvest are much better, said Oliver. “It’s already too late to get a normal cutting, primarily because Ctk^iek of rain.”