Well I have a suggestion for anyone who needs rain. Just start an outdoor remodeling project. We are building a garage and extending out bedroom and bathroom out 5 feet plus redoing the front drainage and putting in new driveways. It has rained almost every other day since we started about a month ago. We did get the slab poured but the driveways are torn up and trenches are filled with water from more rain we got today. I am not complaining understand. Just making a suggestion for those of you who are parched! :o)
Texas Drought
How big does the project have to be? We had about 1-1/2 miles of trenching just completed to get water to several of our pastures. No rain during the project but we did unearth a capped 250' deep well. Does that qualify in terms of getting water? The weird thing is that the just-found well is less than 100' from another well I found about 7 years ago located near the site of a failed oil digging venture done by the previous owner. We did get 0.83 inches of rain today. My DH insists the reason we got rain was that I was off the ranch today. We spent the day in Houston. If that's the case, maybe he'll let me visit our boys in California. That will surely end the drought here. :-)
Just emptied another 1/2". Total now is 8.7".
Haven't been able to get in the garden since Wed to cut okra. You can imagine what it looks like. Guess I'll have to remove it and plant Fall stuff. Freezer is full of okra anyhow.
The straw bales that I put down Tuesday evening are cooking between 110º and 138º. Haven't had to water them because of all the rain since Wed am. They should be ready for planting in about 8 or 9 days.
Glad some of you guys are getting some wet out of this.
Jerry
My plants have gone into overdrive. Even the potted plants are responding like crazy.
These are some of the plants that are flowering now.
Starfruit
Barbados Cherry
Dragonfruit
Calamondin
Passionfruit
Indian jujube
Salvia
Hyssop
I'm so happy to hear/see that parts of Texas that desperately need it are finally getting some good rain. Rowlett (NE Texas) is enjoying a loooooooong, slow, soaking rain. The very best kind. Since last night I've got just over 2" in my rain gauge, and it's supposed to continue raining through tomorrow. I love it and so do my plants/lawn. Enjoy, y'all. :-)
Carla
We have accumulated 4 1/2 inches so far, incredible!!!
I'm so glad that the parched people are drenched, now! You can almost hear the plants singing, can't you?
Love the water - we got more than 6" here and glad to have it even though some of my seedlings and cuttings are having to learn to swim - it was one heck of a downpour for quite a while last night and it hasn't let up for very long today, either. So happy to have all this water!
The lightning is another story. When the flash and the BLAM! arrived at the same time, it's too close. At least I'm not still diving under the bed every time there's lightning within a mile. ;)
Not much here, occasional light drizzle today and yesterday. The sun was out part of today. Yesterday we were in San Antonio and experienced more than that. At one point it was pouring cats and dogs on the northside along 1604. We finally had to head back toward the west because we were just sitting in the truck, too much rain to run into any stores even if we were parked really close. Fortunately, we had gotten most of the things we were in town for. And by the time we got back to Bandera Rd., hardly anything coming down! Rain is SO spotty. Of course we had hopes of a bunch of rain at our place while we were gone...oh well! Still a decent chance of rain today and tomorrow. Anybody seeing all those termites flying around now?
This message was edited Sep 12, 2009 4:10 PM
It just let up here. I dumped another full 1" out of the rain gauge. Total here since Wed am is 9.7". I'll take it !!!
Jerry
We are over 8 inches. Wow!
1.75 inches at home and 2.5 inches at the orchard. It is less that everyone else but it is like a dream come true if I think back about 1 week ago.
Wish I could shift some of this your way. We are now at 11 inches since Thursday night and it is still pouring. We are some 50 miles from DFW Airport and that is where the official readings are. They show less than 2 inches. Our reading is from our own BIG rain gauge in the middle of the garden.
Christi
I don't have a rain gauge, but I've got a giant Rubbermaid storage tub that's about 14" tall sitting pretty level on my patio and it's almost overflowing.
I could tell that we were getting a lot of water, but watching that bin fill up has been pretty amazing.
Thank goodness I planted mostly in hay bales and "lasagna" style compost beds - a lot of our yard has been underwater since shortly after the rain started.
I would have to say that the temps posted for this week are just like getting another inch of rain. Partly cloudy and 80s. WOW! There wont be a lot of evaporation going on here.
As of now we are at 14 1/4 inches of rain and it doesn't appear to be stopping as yet. We were out just bit ago and there was pecan tree at least 75 years old fallen on its side with the root ball still attached. The lot where it was had been under water.
Oh how sad, such a loss.
Hope the fish in the ponds are still hanging in there. You might try pumping a little of it down before you get a downpour just incase.
Hey, Sheila. Have you had flooding again? Becky's pond is overflowing and so is mine.
Fish are staying on the bottom.
That's Texas for you! Feast or famine, often in just the wrong places.
Christi...Sad about the pecan tree. Those around here are drooping with rain and pecans this year and I figure that they will loose some limbs if they don't have a chance to dry out soon.
No flooding here, the pond is high, but we have the overflow in the skimmer so it doesn't get high enough for them to get out unless the yard floods over the sides. We also built up the sides since the last flood so it would have to be quite a bit higher for it to flow into the pond. The rains here have been hard at times but nothing like the downpore that flooded us in 2004. As long as it rains slow or we get breaks in between it will run off.
Just a caution with the lakes high the heron don't have their normal feeding areas and may come looking. The high water brings the fish closer to it's reach. Oh also, I forgot to give you the koi food to take to Becky and I have an abundance of Water Lillies that I can share if you or she needs one. lmk
Sheila
The pecan tree was on an undeveloped lot that we passed today when we were out. Sorry, didn't mean to make it sound as though it was one of ours. Still a shame.
I would love the lilies. Bought one this summer but it never developed at all. Becky's koi are still spooked. Just will not come around the bend in their pond. Mine are just little goldfish.
Oh, yes I understood it was on another lot, still a shame to see big trees just fall like that.
I know you aren't making the Arl RU, what about Jacksonville? Or if you come this way let me know and I will have some ready.
I hope someone realizes that the pecan tree's wood is valuable and makes use of it. It makes into beautiful furniture and flooring.
We will be leaving on vacation on Oct. 2nd so Arlington is out again this year and I am so disappointed. We are going with another couple and had to work around their schedule.
Considering Jacksonville.
The latest drought map. Many areas moved from exceptional to extreme drought. I think my county was moved over because of heavy rains in the southern part of the county.
http://drought.unl.edu/DM/DM_state.htm?TX,S
See that little blob in the middle that is still exceptional. My house and orchard are right there. The ground is still moist here so I am not complaining.
I noticed. Thought of you when I saw that new map. In reality, we should still be there in exceptional also...but I'm sure there's nobody around here recording official rainfall for them. The property looks a bit dry already. But the skeeters are back! The only consolation in all that heat and drought was absolutely NO skeeters or chiggers.
Yes. I was working on my rainwater collection system tonight and I was eaten alive. Luckily they were those little local mosquitoes and not the big Chinese Zebra ones. Those Zebra Mosquitoes attack me during the day in full sun.
I have never had or seen a chigger before.
This message was edited Sep 18, 2009 9:27 PM
Just over one inch total, yesterday and today. Is the drought over? I'm still wondering...don't even trust it to last. Temps are nice! 57.9° low last night! If it gets low enough sometime soon, maybe that will make the skeeters go away. Early fall this year...sure needed it!
I'm glad it's raining in your area, Linda. And I do hope your drought is over.
Carla
Send thanks up to Alberta (the low dropped through that province......not that they were happy to host it however). Right now my province has a giant straw bale wall to the north and west (we still haven't had frost yet).
We were also at 95 degrees F http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=0ff0e2c3-696d-43cf-a3e1-ff09c84a3796&sponsor= the other day so I'll thank you folks for sending the heat up (at this time of year our nights are in the 50's so hot crop ripening days are very, very welcome). We had the coldest summer I can remember this year (that cockroach ridge you folks had over Texas did the opposite for us).
Had 1.1" as of this am. Been drizzling all day today. I unloaded a yard and a half of gardening soil into my newest raised. Got soaking wet, but it felt pretty good..
Those gold blooming evergreen wild flowers that grow in this part of the country are in full bloom...a nice show. The four-o'clocks are also in full bloom - peach ones and fuchsia ones. The Rose of Sharon has been blooming too. It's a red one I just got.
The skeeters are chewing on me with a vengeance! But it is fun to wander around in the drizzle and see all the new growth. There are two kinds of wildflowers blooming that I have never seen before.
It's been raining here off and on for the past 2 days. Which is great because even though we got a really good soaking for a few days on end, Sunday I had to water a few things and Monday too. So, I'm back to just enjoying all the blooms! My guineas aren't enjoying the mud much, though! One evening last week (when it was a big storm coming) my baby guineas got spooked and all 8 of 'em flew up into a big tree. Well, of course they wouldn't come down, so my DH was out there throwing sticks, rocks, bamboo stick up into the tree and they were just dodging him! Then the rains came and we were both out there, the rain so hard you couldn't hardly look up into the tree without drowning, our dog was running around and playing in the rain and mud - and all I could do was laugh! It was the funniest site - my DH and I laughed about that for days. Sorry - got carried away there. See what rain does to me? hehe!
I thought it was turkeys that turned their heads up into the rain and drowned, not people.
hahahah. I am laughing with you.
Did you get your babies ok?
Smart gineas!
HAHA! You're definitely laughing with me - two grown adults running around out in the rain like kids! It was great! And yes, one by one the little stinkers came down - that's where I came into the action and herded them into the coop. By the time the last one "flew" down, she was so soaked through she didn't get very far! They are the funniest critters! And Sheila - yes, I thought they wouldn't care about the mud,
but today it's drizzling and raining off and on and they've all stayed in the covered coop, so they are not
as dumb as they act sometimes!
I just emptied 1.6" from the rain gauge. The only problem is it came in such a deluge that most ran off. It is still drizzling so that's good.
Hope my sweet potatoes don't rot in the ground. I really don't want to dig them in the mud.
Jerry
I just dumped another 1.4". My total so far is 3".
Well, I finally one-upped you, so maybe the drought curse of the Park Rd. 37 area is ended! 3.7" just from last night. I'm hoping no serious flooding on the roads. Guess I'll find out.
Oh, and my creek is flowing for the first time in....well, I just don't remember the last time!
This message was edited Oct 4, 2009 1:13 PM