PETERBOROUGH — It was the long hard rain farmers across the region have been praying for, so even though Sunday’s rainfall came on the night of Slow Food Monadnock’s ‘Dinner with the Cows’ event, organizers couldn’t complain.

“We didn’t want it to rain tonight, but we did want it to rain,” Ruth Holmes told the diners.

It was a cold wet night for a dinner in a field, but not one of the 50 diners backed out of the event, said Holmes. In fact, people who were unable to buy tickets were calling her earlier in the day trying to get in on a cancellation, she said.

Holmes manages Sunnyfield Farm on Route 136 with her husband, Dan Holmes. Together they hosted the dinner in a Sunnyfield Farm field with other Slow Food Monadnock organizers.

Natasha Meehan, co-owner of Aesops Tables and Events, catered the meal, using meat and produce from Sunnyfield Farm and produce from other local farms. The theme was Monadnock meets the Middle East and the menu included Moroccan grilled chicken, grilled lamb sausages and lamb kabobs, grilled vegetable kabobs and Moroccan couscous.

The diners endured the damp, gathered under a tent for a family-style dinner and enjoyed the Middle Eastern -inspired feast while the farm’s dairy herd munched on grass in the pasture nearby.

“They are just as happy to be out here as we are,” Dan Holmes said of the herd.

It has been about three weeks since a significant rainfall has hit Sunnyfield Farm, he said, and the cows are enjoying it.

The Sunday rainfall, though, has come too late to save the season. The dairy herd’s milk production is down as is vegetable and hay production.

“It’s been a really hard year and we’re really worried about what’s coming up,” Ruth Homes said.

Dan Holmes said the dry summer has already forced him to start feeding the dairy herd hay that was set aside for this winter. Because of the lack of rainfall, there was no second hay cutting this summer, he said.

“We’ll be obligated to buy hay to get us through the winter,” he said.

Holmes said he also plans to send more of his herd to slaughter than he would normally.

“The herd will shrink, our costs will rise,” he said. “The impact is primarily economic.”

Sunnyfield Farm, though, will have an easier time staying afloat than the typical small family run farm. Sunnyfield is owned by Crotched Mountain Rehablitation Center in Greenfield, which uses the farm as a school for its clients.

“We have a huge benefit because of that relationship,” Dan Holmes said.

Proceeds from the Dinner with the Cows event will help defray the cost of travel expenses for Meehan and other local Slow Food delegates for a trip to Slow Food’s biennial Terra Madre event in northern Italy this October.