Mother Nature continues to throw curves at local farmers as they attempt to wrap up what already has been a challenging year. The widespread, soaking rainfall they so desperately needed in July and August finally came this past week, interrupting their efforts to get this year’s crop out of the fields. With rainfall amounts generally ranging from 2 to 3 inches over a two-day period, soggy conditions even shut down operations at several cotton gins around the area. “It was too muddy to get around in our own yard,” an employee at King-Mesa Gin west of Lamesa said Friday afternoon. At least four of ...