Four years ago today, the spillways at Rye Patch Dam gushed water, the reservoir above it was full, the river below a broad deep current.

Today the gates are high and dry. The fishing is still good on the other side, but below the dam the Humboldt River is a mere trickle as it flows slowly to its final stop in the fields around Lovelock.

For those of us used to the ebb and flow of the Truckee or Carson, the Humboldt is something else again.

"Whether it's climate change or cyclic weather or whatever you want to call it, there's no normal anymore. It seems like it's either feast or famine, says Bennie Hodges, the man in charge of the Pershing County Water Conservation District. "It's either a drought year or a very wet year." Hodges has seen more of the former than the latter. He figures 12 of the last 20 years have been drought years.

One might think the recent rains would help. In fact it's not enough to make any difference and at the moment it's a bit of a problem. You can't cut alfalfa when it's wet, so it's actually holding up the first cutting and thus the start on the growth for the second cutting.

The steep peaks and valleys of Lovelock agriculture reflect the nature of the Humboldt River.

Unlike other Nevada rivers the Humboldt slowly meanders across the northern span of the state, twisting 12 hundred miles or more of river channel to make the 200 mile journey. And there are plenty of upstream users by the time its water reach here it's well-used and well traveled. This year there's precious little to go around.

At this point Hodges has set the allotment for local ranchers at just 15 percent of normal. That leaves them with some hard decisions.

"Mostly, you just cut back to your best acreage. Take care of that and let the rest go," sayslocal farmer and equipment dealer Hugh Montrose.

But losing production this year is only the first blow. Land left fallow has to be replanted "You have to buy fertilizer, seed, do land leveling, repair ditches. It's actually coming out of the drought than going in." And that cost can run to $400 dollars an acre.

That's not the end of the ranchers' problems. Hay prices have also dropped drastically--a ripple effect of milk prices, the reduction of dairy herds and the resulting drop in demand for hay. Like water from the Humboldt, bad news and luck seems to come all at once or not at all.

All this is adding up to a tough year and Lovelock ranchers can only hunker down and wait it out.

"It's just real tough for these guys to make a living under these conditions," says Hodges.

The ranchers have been here before. "We were fortunate the agriculture was good last year, production was good, prices were good and so that helps a lot for these farmers going into this drought," says Montrose. "They'll just tighten up the operation, make do with less and hang on and wait for water this coming year."