Temperature And Rain

The hot weather and drought has finally broken here.  The last few days, the temperature has dropped and I have gotten almost 2" of rain.  The lawn, tomatoes, and flowers sure appreciate it!  Even the native wildflowers were struggling...

One good thing about the rain was that it fell in spurts over 3 days, so it all had a chance to soak in.  It can be depressing to get 2" of rain all at once and watching the storm drains carrying most of it away!

The temperature wasn't as bad as some places.  Ten days ago, it was this, though, and that was at 11:30 am.  It probably got worse in the afternoon.

 Temperature is a funny thing though.  I read a science article in the newspaper that said even accounting for the "heat index", a lower temperature in one region can be harsher than a higher temperature in another.  

I don't recall all the details, but it involved accumulated soil temperature, sunlight reflectivity, etc.  They gave specific examples, but basically sometimes 100 is worse than 105.  Old joke "It was so hot, I saw a starving coyote chasing a terrified rabbit.  And they were both walking!"

And as far as "plain old temperature" goes, I was in Ft Worth TX on Govt business once, and walking to lunch with a few local employees.  We passed a bank temperature/time display and I laughed, saying they should get their display fixed.  It said 110 and I was comfortable enough.  One of the local guys glanced at it and said it looked right.  Huh???

It was the low humidity (about 10-20% he said).  Wow, I am used to 60-80% humidity in July.  That sure makes a difference.

Three decades ago here, we would get several days each Summer over 100 and a lot of high 90s.  The lawn would get so hot and dry that the soil would crack open.  The grass was routinely brown July and August.  It hasn't been that bad for many years.  

It may be that my lawn soil and grass is much better than when I first moved here (to an undeveloped property).  The builder probably seeded it with really cheap grass and used cheap "fill dirt" to raise and level the lawn (and then drove heavy equipment all over it building the house).

One good organic lawn practice is to leave your grass clippings on the lawn.  Grass is the perfect fertilizer for grass.  By definition, grass clippings have exactly what grass needs.  And, no, it doesn't cause "thatch".  Thatch is a layer of dead and living surface grass roots, and from runners from grasses that spread outwards (bluegrass, bermuda, and bent).  I have been overseeing with fescue for 3 decades.

I don't want to get too far "into the weeds" here and bore you to death.  But causes of thatch include over-fertilization, frequent shallow watering (it brings roots to the surface), and poor and/or compacted soil.   

And let some clover grow in your lawn.  First, the bees will love you for it!  But maybe more importantly, clover roots grow deeper than grass roots.  They bring nutrients back up from deeper soil.  Those nutrients are stored in the clover leaves.  Then,  those nutrients are returned to the surface of the lawn, where the grass roots can get at them when you mow the lawn.    

Over the years, the cycle of nutrient replenishment and left-in-place organic matter improves even bad soil.  I can tell.  I planted a shrub and a tree sapling in the front yard last Fall.  When I looked at the holes, I could see that the top 3" were darker and richer than the soil below.  It used to be clay from the surface down...

Meanwhile, I am enjoying the cooler and rainier days this past week.  Usually, this week or two are the hottest and driest part of the year.  But the forecasts show a decent chance of rain most days for the next 2 weeks.  I sure hope they are accurate! 

Marley

It gets difficult to recall which of The Mews is outside and which in with 4 of them sometimes.   And we have had some sudden brief downpours lately.  They hate getting rained on, so I check The Weather Channel a lot.

But sometimes there are surprises.  Being old and experienced, I can usually guess when it is about to rain.  A sudden darkness, a sudden stillness in the air outside (and oddly, inside) and you can expect a heavy shower to happen soon.

I call any of The Mews outside in.  And a funny thing about that.  I used to be able to whistle loudly and they understood that meant "come in now".  Lately, I can't.  So I bought a tonette and do it 3 times 2x.  They are getting used to that as a "come in" call.

So a surprise rain caught by by surprise yesterday afternoon.  The Mews naturally want to shelter from rain but a few tonette calls usually let them know the deck door is open and they can come in.  And Laz and Lori came running...

But I couldn't decide where Marley was.  Sometimes outside, he hides under the raised shed, or under the deck, unwilling to get wet running for the house.  So I searched the house.  I checked the garage.  Couldn't find him.  And I know most of his hiding places.  Couldn't find him...

I get really worried when I don't know where all The Mews are.  So I spent an hour searching around the house and calling to him outside.  No Marley...  I got worried enough to go out and look around the street!

So back inside, I fed The Mews.  The sound of a cat can being opened always makes him come running.  No Marley.  That got me calling outside again.  I went out to the shed and called.  He would at least stick his head out!

No Marley.  After 4 hours, I was getting distressed.  And then there was Marley indoors sitting at my feet and asking for dinner.  He had been inside the whole time.  Well, that's better than if he had been out all night and sitting at the deck door in the morning waiting to get back inside!

They drive me crazy sometimes, but I love them...

RAIN!

2' so far and thank you Mother Nature.  We sure needed it.  Give us a couple more...  I actually stood outside in the rain.  

I haven't mowed the lawn in weeks.  Well, there were a few weeds sending up flowers.   But mostly there were dead clovers seed heads all over.   I like clovers.  They send down deep roots and pull nutrients to the surface for the grass to use.

A "lawn" is anything short and green to me.  LOL. 

Indoors Rain

There was a ferocious downpour here Wednesday night (we got 4" in 2 hours).  I was  preparing dinner and heard an odd dripping sound.  Water was suddenly coming from my ceiling!  I ran to grab some plastic bins from the basement.  Just in time, too.  It got worse real fast, coming from 3 spots close by, but mostly from where I had a plant-hanger ceiling hook.  

Fortunately, the rain did not last as long as forecast, so it could have been a lot worse.  And I didn't sleep well later, listening for more rain.  I had a branch poke a hole in the roof (at a different spot) 10 years ago and had the plywood replaced and the whole roof re-shingled (it was 25 years old anyway).  

So in the morning, I called the original installer to repair the leaky roof.  First, they knew the roof, and second, since 10 years isn't long for a roof, I figured they owed me a decent price.

He said he couldn't get out to me until Monday.  That made sense, downpours get them real busy.  Maybe I should have called a couple other roofers, but at the moment I was fixated of having the original installer do it.  

I was fortunate that rain forecast for Thursday-Sunday didn't happen.  Monday morning, he called to say it would have to be Tuesday.  Thankfully he showed up Tuesday.

Funny story there.  When I pulled the original installation documents from my paper files, they were only 5 miles away from here.  I discovered (when he called Monday) that he had moved 2 counties away since then AND mostly just did work for businesses these days.  But, because he did the re-shingling, he would come out and fix it.  And because I still had a pack of the existing shingles, he agreed it was likely to be a quick job.

And he arrived Tuesday and did the repair.  There were 2 missing shingles.  He replaced those and 2 others (just to be sure).

He was friendly, and the cost was OK.  But he also pointed out the shingles had been missing for a while.

Mea Culpa!  I had found a couple of shingles on the lawn last year.  But my upwind neighbor has about the same color shingles and I thought they were his (blown into my yard in a windstorm).  Really, I looked at my roof from the front and back then and couldn't see any missing.  It was a bad assumption!  

Last month, I happened to use a flashlight in the front hall closet (near where last week's leaks occurred).  The ceiling was black with mold.  I should have called a roofer immediately, but I assumed that since my attic is gets very humid, it was just something to clean and repaint with anti-mold paint.

Well, I was wrong, and paid for my procrastination!

I have stipple ceilings.  I didn't ask for them when the house was built, but I generally like them.  Visual stimulation...  But they are more expensive to repair.  So "great", now I have stains in it in 3 places and there is a 4' mildly broken line in the ceiling.  Apparently, stipple is formed on a 4'x4' support and one edge is loose.

But it all could have been worse and on Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for that...

1.  The roofer went out of his territory to do the repair.

2.  The cost was low.

3.  The ceiling didn't actually fall down.

4.  It didn't rain more even though forecast to do so.

5.  The damage is fixable.

6.  I learned a lesson about procrastination.

Rain

What an awful gardening year!  I would say there was NOTHING good about it, but the local reservoirs are probably filled to capacity and there have been years when they got dangerously low to the point of home watering restrictions.  And I will admit that my pole beans and cucumbers did pretty well in the raised beds (better drainage).

But the tomatoes died of fungal diseases, the carrots and leeks and broccoli crops never grew.  The spinach wouldn't even germinate.  And when you cant get radishes to grow, things are serious.

It was a cold wet Spring. July-October, we got over 2' of rain and November hasn't been much different.  It didn't rain for 5 days last week, but the ground is so saturated it didn't make any difference.  It isn't like we got the rain in large batches all at once; its just so CONSTANT!  And I got 3" of rain yesterday and today.

I cut down a lot of junk samplings  and undergrowth in late Spring and filled the trailer.  And there it sits.  The County yard debris recycling center (where they pile it all up in huge heaps that steam and decompose into a mulch/compost mix for homeowners to take for free and will use a bucket-loader to fill your trailer on Saturday mornings for free) is located in a slight depression.  

When it rains, the bulldozer that keeps turning over the piles for even decomposition churns it into a sea of mud.  I've been waiting for things to dry out enough to bring my debris there.  SINCE MAY!  And I have enough debris for 2 more loads.

Possibly the most consequential result is that my lawn is dying.  The soil is so wet for so long that there are large dead areas in the front.  The soil just "squishes" underfoot.  The last time I mowed it. it left muddy ruts.  Even just walking across it not only leaves footprints, the dead grass slides around underfoot.  If next year is relatively normal, I will have to do a lot of renewal.

The soil is good.  I'm organic and I use a mulching blade on the mower that turns grass into shreds in place.  There is no better fertilizer for grass than grass.  Well, grass has exactly what grass needs, right?  And I mow all the tree leaves too.  They get shredded into leaf dust after a few times around the lawn each Fall.   

I know the soil is good.  Each year I dig a hole randomly and look at the sides.  What used to be mostly clay is now darker and loamier after 3 decades.  And when I first moved here, the soil would crack open in Summer.  It doesn't do that anymore.

A couple years ago, a yard-maintenance agent came by to try to sell me on his services.  I invited him to look at the lawn.  He found some weeds of course.  He poked at the soil with a screwdriver and it went in nicely.  He actually complimented me on it.  And I don't do much.  The mulched grass clippings, the leaves.  An application of corn-gluten meal in Spring.  And overseeding every few years.  Cutting the grass 3" high.  I don't even water the lawn (except lightly when I overseed).

I may lose some decorative trees due to root-rot and drowning.  Last year was so dry I was forced to even water the decorative trees.  And this year they are soaked and drowning.  Yes, trees can drown; they actually need air.

Last year,  my 2 Golden Rain Trees lost most of their leaves by late Summer in spite of long drip watering.  This Spring, some branches were dead but there were new shoots from the trunk and a few living branches.  So I figured I would wait a year and seriously prune both of the deadwood next year.  

Well, half of one just broke off in a windstorm and I bet I could just break off more if I pulled on them.  But hope springs eternal.  I'll hope for their survival and gradual recovery.  I more worried about the Saucer Magnolia in the front lawn.   I would very much hate to lose that.  It is a joy to see blooming in the Spring.

If this precipitation pattern lasts another month or 2 I am going to see serious snowfall.  I better make sure the snowblower is working and move it into the garage. 

Rain

Oh damn it's raining again
I dont know when it will stop raining again.
 It just never stops raining again.

I think we're all gonna drown!

Oh my god, its raining again,
There's just no end the rain again.
How;s it possible its raining again?

I think we're all gonna drown!

"Jennifer with your orange hair
Jennifer with your green eyes
Jennifer in your dress of deepest purple
Jennifer, where are you tonight?

Underneath the water
Underneath the water
Underneath the water"

Oh man, its raining again 

Will it ever stop again?

All next week forecasts rain again.

I think we're all gonna drown!

Random Thoughts And Observations

It has been so rainy here lately, the slugs are crawling up on the front steps to get out of the wet.

The moquito larvae are drowning in the grass.

Rice is growing wild in the lawn.

I used an umbrella to get the mail 3 days ago and set the umbrella to dry in the garage.  It is still wet.

The cats found a fish hiding in the basement!

My Civ2 game declared all my land units drowned.  But I have lots of Subs.

The local gas station is giving away free water with every fill-up.  And if you take away 5 gallons, they give you a gallon of gas free.

The local dowser turned his forked stick upside down trying to find dry spots.

A dry spot appeared in the sky and everyone cheered.    And took pictures.

Local Republicans are acknowledging "Climate Change" and blaming local Democrats for not doing something about it.     Local Democrats are denying they ever liked "rain" and proposed a Bill banning it.  President Trump is denying it is raining.  He says it is "fake news".

The cats insisted on going outside but they got tired of swimming in the lawn and came back inside.

Rain

Not that we have had all THAT much rain compared to Houston or India, but we got more than usual here for 2 months...  I have never seen such huge mushroom here.  Those are standard 22" flats next to them...

And the rain gauge nearly overflowed...

More Bulb Planting Fun

The Project That Never Ends continues...  WHAT was I thinking when I ordered 350 tulips/hyacinths/daffodils to plant?  Well, I suppose because I had new space and I decided in September to landscape rather than just plant grass.  And its not the bulbs, its the making of and the digging for all the wire cages to protect them from the Evil Squirrels and Nasty Voles.

Just planted in the ground, the squirrels dig them up from above and the voles eat them from below.  I'm hoping the wire cages keep them safe and blooming for years.  But I never expected it would be so much work!

I've bored you with the process before, so I won't do that again.  But even to do a few cages takes time.  It's the weather...

In one sense, I have been very lucky with the weather.  The ground is usually frozen hard by mid November and it has stayed oddly warm this year.  So I have had more time to plant them.  On the other hand, it has rained some  almost every day for 6 weeks.  Not that we are flooded; the rain is a soft drizzle.  But that's enough to make the soil slippery and muddy.  And you don't want to dig in wet soil because it packs down.  And at the end of a day working in wet soil, I would look like The Swamp Thing!

So I have a large 36'x30' sheet of plastic I cover the area with every day.  OK, the bottom 4' are not covered, but that section was the first I planted so I don't have to step in it.

So every day when it is not raining, I take all the stones off some of the edges of the plastic, peel it back for where I want to plant, and get 3 more bulb cages (holding 9 bulbs each) set in.  3 cages take about 90 minutes and after that I'm tired.  Well, each hole has to be 14"x16" and 12" deep.  And the dug up soil has to go somewhere other than on top of the previous plantings (I have styrofoam plates marking the planted spots and I can't cover THEM).

So putting the dug-up soil gets trickier the more cages I plant.  I have all the tulips planted (20 cages) and I am on the hyacinths at the outer edge on one side.  That side (of the 30' edged circle) is the easier to dig in (sandier soil vs clayier soil), so I favor that area for digging.

The other side of the circle will be for daffodils, more about those when I plant them, but they are FAR easier to plant...

So I wanted to start on the hyacinths yesserday.  The forecast looked good.  The Weather Channel website for my town said no rain until 6 pm.  Hurray!  I got started at 2:30.  It took 15 minutes to get the ools and bulbs outside and peel the plastic sheeting off.  So I started to dig the first hole.

And then it started to rain!  Misty at first but then more steadily...  Dammit!  I waited a few minutes as the rain got heavier.  But I gave up and re-covered the planting site with the plastic and put all the tools away. 

Fortunately, I also needed to go grocery-shopping, so off I went with rain falling on the windshield.  For 2 minutes...

Then it stopped completely.  For the rest of daylight.  ARGHHH!

Well, at least I got the grocery-shopping done...

Heavy Rain On New Lawn

After more than a month without and measurable rain, I was beginning to think I could ignore the possibility of rain in my new lawn plans.  Silly me...

I got the new lawn soil leveled and planted in the front yard in plenty of time for the soil to settle and the new grass to emerge and set down roots.  The back yard waited.  I got the back leveled and seeded about 10 days ago.  The grass barely emerged when we finally got some rain.  And of course, not just some rain, but a lot of it.  We have had 3.75" so far.

That left me 3 concerns for the front yard.

First, would serious heavy rain overflow the drainage easement and wash some of my new soil away at the edge?  Second, would the heavy rain wash some of the new grass away and/or create runoff ditches?  Third, would I discover new places of standing water (part of what my soil-raising efforts were intended to stop)?

The first is uncertain.  I can't see any drainage edge erosion, but I can't get too close to it to be sure.  The new soil is too soft to walk on to go investigate.

The second worked fine.  There was a full day of light drizzle and that settled the soil a bit, and the soil was so dry it soaked up almost all the rain.  The grass seems to have stayed in place.

The third isn't so good.  I have a 4'x10' standing puddle in the front of the lawn.  OK, there is supposed to be a "swale" there ("a slight depression for directing water runoff", in my case to storm drains at either side of the front of the yard).  But it ISN'T supposed to have a low spot that holds water. 

It wasn't obvious by eyeballing the new soil level, but water never lies.  There is a low spot that won't drain in either direction.  So I need some more soil to add there.  I don't need much; a cubic yard (cubic meter) should do fine.  I just need the rain to flow off toward either drain.  It could be worse; my adjacent upstreet neighbor has an actual concrete channel for a swale (makes for awkward mowing, it keeps filling with dirt and debris, and it is ugly).

The back yard did not fare so well with the rain.  I planted the grass seed there 8 days ago and it was barely up when the rains hit.  The day before the rains, there was a uniform fuzz of new grass.  Today, there are large bare spots and a few channels 2" deep where the rainfall flowed downslope.  I'm going to have to relevel that and plant new seed.  Fortunately, a local garden expert addressed that very question online Saturday and said there was still time to plant new grass seed in a week after the soil dries out a bit.  Of course, that's assuming we don't get another hard rain in a week (none forecast though).

Well, nothing is ever guaranteed when planting anything.  Sometimes, you have to do it again.  At least I'm not depending on grass as food, LOL!  If I was a cow, this would be a lot more serious.

Rain, Good And Bad

Well, we got some heavy rain here Tuesday.  Almost 3" all day, but almost all of it in 1 hour.

I'm not going to complain bout it much.  I needed some rain.  It hasn't been as dry as in some years when the soil cracked open, but on the other hand, the soil surface and grass was dry this afternoon, so I mowed the lawn.  Other places got more rain though, and not the kind that would just get soaked up by the lawn.  Places in Maryland got 9-10", and In New York, it got up to 14".  I saw pictures on TV of cars floating around in streets and parking lots.  So it could have been a LOT worse here.

Still, I had some problems with water getting into the basement, and I thought I had solved that with the extra-large raingutters installed 2 years ago and a drainage ditch I dug from the sunken patio.  The sunken patio has been a problem for a decade at least.  It properly slopes slightly away from the house.  The water that collects at the lower end for a day or 2 is a minor (but annoying) problem.

It's the fact that the lawn level has raised over the years that really creates the problem.  Grass grows, I mow it, the clippings become topsoil, etc.  Well, that's why praries have dozens of feet of topsoil.   I need to lower the lawn level at the edge of the deck, but that is back-breaking work and I keep avoiding it.

Instead, I dig a drainage ditch.  3"wide, 3" deep, and the lawn slopes downhill from the patio, so it works great.  It can drain off even the heaviest rain.  The problem?  Soil moves.  The ditch slowly fills in very slowly and I never notice when it is QUITE not capable of handling the occasionally heavy rainfall.  So I have to run out in the downpour and rescrape the ditch with the grubhoe deep enough to drain the patio.

But I had an additional surprise this time!  The raingutters ARE working just fine.  But, apparently, the soil level raised just enough this Summer to direct the outflow back toward the patio instead of out into the downslope lawn.

I'm generally an optimist (though maybe not a rational one).  I always expect things I fix to STAY fixed.  To show the flaw in that, I also expect weeded areas of the garden to STAY weedless, repaired cars to STAY working, and structures I build to stay standing.  Obviously, there is a flaw in my expectations.

So when I dig a ditch to drain rainfall away from the patio, I expect it to STAY a ditch...  Even though I'm the smartest person in the house, I have some errors in my assumptions.

So I'm going to fix this rainfall-in-the-basement problem once and for all!  I'm going to build a sealed 1' dike in front of my basement!  Just kidding... 

Seriously, I'm going to lower the lawn level 3" below the edge of the patio/lawn.  I will dig a 1' deep trench along that edge and toward the downslope lawn, and I will install perforated drainage pipe buried in sand and landscaping fabric (however it is recommended).  And I will attach a 4'  extension to the existing downspout to get the rainfall from the roof away from the patio.

Drainage pipe...

Gutter extention...

 

Damnable But Small Problems

It's the smaller problems of life that get at you the worst sometimes.  I mean, Really Bad Problems, you know they are, and you have to deal with them.  Family members die, you break a bone, you lose a job.  Those are bad.  And everyone understands.

Its the smaller stuff that is sometimes harder to deal with, because you are all alone with it.  The splinter in your finger, the sore shoulder, the car that doesn't like to start, those don't get so much sympathy. 

I've been plagued with the latter recently.  I don't need much sympathy, but I DO want to gripe about them.  And its MY blog, so here goes (LOL)...

My left thumb is inept.  For years, I've had a spot I stuck with a thorn and it caused a tiny hard spot that just won't go away.  I keep noticing it with the index fingernail.  I've opened it a couple times with a sewing needle, but I can't get it to heal away.  And I cut the base of my right thumb years ago and it formed a hard spot there too.  I just keep noticing it when I grab things.  So when I got a half-inch splinter in That Left Thumb from the new deck I just got all freaked.  I couldn't get it out.  Turn the inside of your left thumb towards you and put the back down on a steady surface.  Now try to get at it with a needle and tweezers. 

Maybe I'm not as flexible as I used to be, but I just couldn't.  It took a week for the skin harden over the splinter like a callous, and I managed to loosen it after that.  Its healing fine.

But sometimes, it is just stuff like that over and over.  I damaged the left shoulder rotater cuff 10 years ago, and I thing I've done it again.  I don't even know specifically how or when I did it.  I just woke up one morning and OUCH!!!

My aging Mother used to say "getting old isn't for sissies".  Hmmm. I've been enough heavy work on my own for a long time and had a lot of "ouchies" (and enough "ARGGGHS" too), but they seem to be coming more often these days.  I hope I'm not becoming a "sissy".  But let's just say that I used up a tube of muscle rub ointment before the expiration date for the first time this year.

I wish that was the only problem.  I garden a lot and I get a lot of unwanted tree saplings that need to be dug out.  Usually, its not a problem.  Oh, work for sure, but I get them out.  Well, I was surprised this week. 

I am rebuilding my old rotting framed garden beds.  Aligned better to the sunlight, wider and higher, and to have a chicken wire enclosure to keep the varmints out.  Well, with the season moving on, I decided to redig the beds that will be outside the enclosure so that I could have some Summer plants growing (cukes, beans).  Meaning the old less-productive asparagus bed had to be dug up. 

There were 4 tree saplings I've been cutting back in there for several years.  So it was the right time to REALLY dig them out.  I couldn't.  I mean, I used the same techniques I always used before, but they just would yield!  I have tools.  A sharp all metal spade, an axe, a 5' pry bar.  I finally got one out and it about killed me...

Talk about realizing that you aren't 30 anymore...  I'd be happy to be 40 (I'm 64).  I did the sensible thing.  I left the other 3 in and planted around them.  Its just for a few months.  Come Fall, I will cover that bed with plywood and plastic and let them DIE next year.  All problems can be solved with time.

But I only mentioned all this to tell you about today's problem...

I have historically had basement water problems.  The old gutters filled with tree debris and would overflow onto the deck and then down to the sunken patio.  The patio had ground level drainage.  But over the years, the soil build up (fallen leaves, mowed grass) and formed a pool that build up to the level of the basement door.  Water got in.  I solved that temporarily by digging a ditch through the lawn downslope. 

In Fall 2012, I had the roof reshingled, new vinyl siding, and new larger gutters with debris-proof tops.  No more gutter overflow filling the basement patio!  Yeah.

Right...  With the new deck, there was a lot of digging involved.  Lots of soil moved around.  They did a good job moving the extra soil to a corner of the yard.  So far, so good.  What I didn't notice was that some of the extra soil got spread into the remnants of the patio drainage ditch.  So I had a 2" wall of dirt around the lawn connection to the patio.

It rained really hard today.  I was glad for the rain because it has been about 1/4" per week the past month.  BUT!  The rain that fell through the deck filled up the basement patio (I bet you saw that coming).  FORTUNATELY, I happened to go into the basement to get something and saw the rainwater seeping in.  I threw some old towels on it and went to the toolshed IN THE TORRENTIAL RAIN to get my grub-hoe.  Shovels work, but a grub-how makes a nice 4" wide and deep trench.  In the rain. 

Even with a raincoat on (and I wished I still owned a poncho) I was soaked to the skin just making a 4" wide and deep ditch from the patio downslope 12' long.  It was a pleasure seeing the water draining out in a rush...

But that is still a temporary fix.  I thought the bigger rain gutters would solve the problem, but with enough hard rain, even just the water falling through the deck will fill up the patio.

The real fix is to lower the level of the lawn where it meets the deck, AND installing a below-ground drainage system to move the patio water downslope.

More work.  Just what I needed.  And I'm sure not going to do THAT before my shoulder heals.  I'll just have to make sure the grub-hoe surface dug ditch stays clear for a while.

ARGGH!

And I won't even get into the new adult groundhog and rabbit I saw around the garden this afternoon.  Well, OK, I just did, but you know what I mean.

Strange Rain

I had the oddest experience today.  Something that hasn't happened to me since I was about 11.  Those many years ago, we kids were playing outside and realized that it was raining in our yard, but NOT across the street!

Well, it finally happened again!  I was watching the rain suddenly pouring down in the front yard, so I went to the back to watch the rain gauge fill up.  Nothing!  It WASN"T raining in the back yard.  Not a drop.

Convinced I was just not seeing it, I went out on the deck.  Dry!  I even went out in the yard because sometimes the trees absorb a lot of rain at first.  Nothing!  It was several minutes before rain finally started falling in the back.

Talk about being on the edge of a cloud!!!  Has this ever happened to you?

RAIN!!!

Finally, it rained yesterday!  And not a thunderstorm of 20 minutes where a lot of the rain would wash off the concrete-like lawn.  It was a nice steady drizzle 3 separate times.  It only totalled 5/8", but every drop soaked into the soil! 

Merely 1 hour after the first morning rain, I could see underwatered plants perking up all around the yard.  Even plants that I had been watering every few days looked happier.  It takes a LOT of watering to match even a meager rain! 

Still, we are just entering the traditional dry season, so I expect it is going to be a long hard Summer...

I'll try to put a good spin on it:  The mosquitos are having a harder time of it than I am.  Even those damn Asian Tiger mosquitoes need "some" water to lay their eggs in.  May they all die unreproductively...