To rain or not to rain

Not much of a question in Randleman, NC. The only rainfall I've seen around here was just a light rain for just the amount of time it took my wife to leave the house, go to the grocery store, and return. Other than that, none at all. The dust isn't even settle on the ground. As much as I love to garden, vegatable, flower and water, I do believe I've settled in the wrong town. It's really frustrating. Year after year of dry summers, poor crops, and wayter ponds drying up, jeoprodizing my pond plants and fish. It has been so dry for three years I could not even have a bog garden. For those that have no idea what a bog garden is, I'll explain. One digs a hole eighteen inches deep, placing a hard sided container in the hole and backfills the container with twelve to fifteen inches of rich soils and fertilizer, and then fills it all up with water. The idea is to grow lotus plants and other plants that like to grow on the edges of lakes but do not like to be completelu submerged in water. The sun is so hot and the rain so infrequent here that the water evaporates almost overnightout of the liners. City water is just too expensive to use for gardening on the scale I do.