Dude, where's my grass?

I'm puzzled.  I'm bewildered.  I'm baffled. 

It's been raining buckets here this summer, it's hot, and everyone's yard and pastures are lush and green, with seedheads swaying in the breeze.

Except at my place.

My grass is not growing.  Okay, that is an exaggeration.  It's not growing much.  Granted, we don't have a lot of grass.  Our five acres is heavily wooded, and my husband does not like to remove trees unless they are pines and threatening the house with a horrifying combination of proximity and deadness.  However, we do have some areas of grass, out in the open where the sun (essential for growth) can reach it for the requisite time each day.

I have fertilized in years gone by - as recently as late last summer.  I don't go nuts with fertilizer. I am not a big fan of applying processed chemicals to the land - I prefer to let manure and grass clippings do their thing as they fall to the ground and decay.  Every summer before this one we've had to mow AND graze to keep up.

But the grass isn't growing fast at all.  Usually, we mow only to pretty up the spots where the horses don't graze evenly.  We've mowed once all summer.  I graze the mares in the backyard and the main yard, and the geldings get moved around the main area in portable electric corrals.  But the boys have hardly been out in their corrals at all this summer 'cause the stuff just ain't growing like it should.

Guess it's off to the feed store for some fertilizer.  Sigh.