I spent most of the day in the flower beds and garden yesterday weeding and was disappointed to see how dry the soil is. Methinks it is directly related to the above normal temperatures (downright HOT) we've been experiencing.
We set up the sprinkler and watered for a few hours (moving the set-up every 45 minutes) two days ago but the water apparently was immediately absorbed by the thirsty plants or evaporated into the air. We've had so much humidity though that you wouldn't think the evaporation rate would be high.
Gosh, maybe all I have to do is talk about the dryness . . . the rain gods may be listening this morning. It's getting very dark outside and I can now hear thunder in the distance.
I need to harvest strawberries today. I probably should have gotten out there very first thing this morning. If we do get rain that will put the kibosh on picking today.
Two hours later: Oh my, did we get rain! Just as I wrote the above paragraph, serious thunder and lightning started and hubby came to tell me to shut down my computer. We were in for a storm. I'll say! We don't have a rain gauge (dang, why don't we have a rain gauge??) but we must have gotten well over an inch.
We just got back in from a walk down the first part of our driveway and we had some serious washing. Also, the water flowage that comes from the hills behind us into the ditch that we've routed into our pond has small waterfalls in it and we can almost see the water level of the pond rising.
The ducks and geese stayed on the pond through the whole storm. Don't they know it's dangerous to be on water during a lightning storm? The geese don't look the least bit wet after the deluge. The goslings are now so big anyone who didn't know them wouldn't be able to tell the babies from the parents.I made quick garden tour before coming in. It took a bit of a beating but I think everything will stand back up with no problem. During the storm I could see standing water in between the potato rows so I'm confident everything got a much needed soaking.
This section of cosmos got pummeled. The hard rain tore the petals right off the flowers. But they'll look no worse for the wear in a couple of days.
Remarkably, the strawberries just keep coming. But there will be no picking today.
I'm still finding a few that are good sized. Can you believe this one?The storm brought in much appreciated cooler air also. I don't know if the rain is done for the day as it's still very gray out with a heavy cloud cover.
I need to go to the farm today to get dairy products and do a couple of errands in town but I think I'll wait a while to see if the weather settles.
Uh-oh, I'm hearing thunder again . . .
7 comments:
Mama Pea - maybe you can rent yourself out as a raindancer? That's a lot of rain to get at once. But the cooler weather must be a blessing. Hot and humid here, too.
Susan - More of a rain blogger, I think!
It's HOT (91F) and HUMID here in southern MN today - YUCK. Had a line of bad thunderstorms move through and apparently a tornado touched down a few miles away. My son was monitoring the weather channel the whole time and had plans to hide out with the hotel desk clerk! After all that excitement we only got about 15 minutes of heavy rain - and it's still humid.
So glad you got some much needed rain!:) We did too, although not nearly enough to make up for 3 weeks without it. But I will take what I can get.
Jen - Silly girl. Whaddaya expect in southern Minnie-soda? Glad the tornado wasn't any closer than it was. Having grown up in Illinois (tornado country) I get a little sick to my stomach whenever the weather is right for spawning them.
My Own Terms - Welcome and thanks for commenting!
Hasn't the weather been strange all over this year?! People in the northwest can't get any sunshine for love nor money . . . just rain, rain, rain.
Hope you get some more moisture soon to even things out.
We are starting to have water restrictions here, beginning stages of an official drought. It's certainly annoying in my garden, but I just hate it when they show the small farmers in their fields that are going to lose their crops, knowing their whole livelihood depends on them. That being said, there was some crazy weather both there and here yesterday! My brother was scheduled to fly out here on a short mission and we thought he would be here about 3 in plenty of time for dinner but didn't arrive until 7! He had to fly north to Canada and across the northern great lakes and back down to avoid the thunderstorms and tornadoes down near the Twin Cities, then by the time he got near the Chesapeake Bay, we were having thunderstorms and horrible visibility and cloud cover. We sure needed the rain, but we didn't get to dinner until 8:30 pm... can you imagine how whiny the kids were by then LOL?
Erin - It seems strange to me that being right on the ocean, you could have drought conditions, but I know it's real.
When we lived in Illinois in farm country, a hail storm would come through and ruin a farmer's whole crop of corn. People would say, "Oh, what a shame," but what they didn't fully realize is that for the farmer that was the same as an office employee, for instance, working but receiving no salary for the next 8 months. So I understand what you mean about farmers being so severely affected by the weather. We, as gardeners, shouldn't get too upset at a little failure.
Glad you got to see your brother!
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