Rain!!

wow ... so much rain here !!!
Love it !

I remember the Dallas summer of 2011 all too well ... not ready for the rain to quit yet! :-)

Carla

We picked up just over an inch of rain this morning. I had to drive in it. Not fun.

My ponds are running over, I have nowhere to store the surplus water. Thinking about digging a tank.

Shame you can't get plastic reservoirs big enough to store water, but check on the local laws about water entrapment and container storages if you do. More rain coming I see, dry air and fields up here in Wis now.

Fort Worth sells rain barrel. I have 2, but that's 110 gallons of water and I have more than that laying on top of my back yard. I do have some scrap pond liner, I could maybe trap some but the amount I could trap in a liner "pond" the difficulty keeping mosquitoes out of it aren't balancing out well. I would get 2 days worth of garden water, but spend on mosquito dunks until I need it

Another 1/2" of rain today and lots more predicted for the holiday weekend. Who's coming to pick me up in their ark?

Well, another 1.5" of rain overnight. I'm ready for a dry spell and lots of sunshine for about 4 or 5 days so everything can start drying out.

Severe storms last night. Lost a large oak tree to lightening. Today the chance of rain is low but it goes back up tomorrow. All the local rivers and creeks flooded. No way in or out.

Hope you have enough TP and coffee! Sorry to hear about your tree.

You know you have had too much rain when you can raise carp in your hay field. This one, a six pounder, showed up in my west field by the house. No ponds nearby either.

We have lost several of our post oaks to uprooting. They are literally falling out of the soaked ground. This one is at the corner of the side yard we use for RUs. Took out a gate and the roots took out a big piece of fence. Literally missed the tractor by inches.
Last year at the end of April, we had a little over 8". This year it was 25" and we had 7" more by the 15th of this month.
At least the Brazos is staying in its banks, unlike several other rivers and creeks.

I siphoned several inches off my above ground pond whose overflow aims near the septic field valve, just set it to siphoning last night before I went to bed. Got 3 inches of rain, accidentally dropped pond 3 inches farther than intended, but septic isn't as flooded, then got an idea, and filled that 100 foot garden hose with water with it set in a constantly refilling puddle on my lot. Disconnected and dropped at street that functions as storm drain, I am siphoning the lot. Need to run to costco since they are closed for the holiday tomorrow. good thing about living in the city, I can get in and out. There were crayfish swimming up the street this morning though, first time I've ever seen that

This message was edited May 24, 2015 1:28 PM

Wow, Joy! Were you able to save the carp or was it already dead? Hate to see any loss of an oak tree.

Gypsi, where are you located in the city that you saw crawfish in the street?

in front of my house, just north of Risinger Rd off Crowley Rd. There is a creek that runs under Risinger and behind my neighborhood. My street dumps into a field that drains into that creek. I put the crayfish and a red eared or carolina slider I rescued from a dog into a small pond I have that is pretty easy to get out of if they want to go back to the creek. Didn't want either of them to get run over. Hoped to get a good enough shot of the turtle to ID species but he didn't stick his head out, and the backlit sky didn't help

I hear Houston is at 22" this month, more on the way. I guess some of our trees still drought damaged are not going to make it after drowning this spring. Watching pines and oaks getting sick...

Wow Gypsi! You're not too far from me.

Well Stephanie, where are you and did you see crayfish this morning? I spotted 2, the neighbor kids spotted 4 more

The rivers are down so we can get in and out now. Always keep extra coffee and TP. Lol
I even got 16 tomato plants in the ground today just a few more to go.

By not far, I meant not across town. I live in Wedgwood, just south of I-20. No crayfish here. When I was growing up in San Antonio, we used to see them all the time when it flooded.


Way to go, Lisa! Glad you got your tomatoes in and glad you can get out.

Stephanie, I am sorry to say that Kelly Carpson passed sometime in the night, probably drowning in all that new water that came down from the sky last night and early this morning.

We lost two more trees after it all stopped, but we're fortunate that we only lost some fencing, and not the well. We only lost electricity and Directv briefly, but at 4 in the morning, that wasn't even inconvenient. The lightning kept everything well lit.
We have friends who got water in their homes, and some who can't get out because of road flooding. We consider ourselves lucky here.

Well, more rain last night. We picked up another 1/2". I'm ready for this to end.

We had storms the entire weekend. Yesterday it was really bad tornadoes, heavy rain, lightening, and flooding. I'm ready for this to end too. I don't mind the rain but these destructive storms scare me.

I have learned how to drain my lot, where my septic drain field is, but the back yard where the tank is, and where one of my chicken coops is, is just mushy. I have enough rain I think. Trying to get work in between the storms. At least tonight the heaviest rain skipped me

Watchin everyone from Mass- and FB friend posts. Is this considered a 300 yr flood mark thing? Has anyone said anything?

Hey Joy, guess the storms aren't skipping you this time. Kelly Carpson? Hahaha!😜. I hope everyone stays safe. Hearing horrible, sad stories with this weather. We're ok in our suburban W. Houston neighborhood. Praying for those living near rivers & other water bodies that are rising. And now I'm glad I didn't get to plant my veggie garden. Any tomatoes would be ruined...

Joy, so sorry to hear about your lovely old trees going down. Most of the rain in my yard drains to the street via surface drains (put in after my living room flooded a few times in 2007) so the rain doesn't bother me like it used to. I am glad I missed that big storm last night, though. The high winds were enough to scare me, am glad I didn't have to deal with close-up lightning and hail too. And more storms in the forecast right through the weekend. Looks like it does indeed take a flood to break a drought.

Carla

This has certainly been interesting weather (gone from drought to flooding in a matter of weeks.) We were in stage 5 drought restrictions! Of course everyone here is grateful that the lake levels are going up, but very sad so much damage has been done.

I'm curious to know, Gypsi, what kind of bee hives you have?

I have one top bar hive so far (installed bees a month ago) that is still on my back porch. In a way I'm glad we never got a chance to move it out to the back yard where it will end up. That area has been a very wide stream for much of the last two weeks as the extra rain runoff heads down to the river.

We had lots of thunder and lightening last night, but only picked up 1/4" of rain and it's been pretty dry today. No rain so far, and that's a good thing!

I feel so bad for the areas that are flooded where homes and livelihoods have been destroyed. It hurts me to see people stranded on highways and roads and home floating down rivers. I don't mind rain, but I don't like the destructive storms and weather. I'm ready for a drying out period so that soil can dry, rivers and lakes can recede and people can try to get back to some form of normalcy.

The winds can be so damaging too. Even if it isn't from a tornado. I have to admit this was one of the most stressful weekends Ive had in a long time. I still have more tomato plants to put in the garden I hope I get some seeds sown. Even tho I'm getting a late start there is still long season ahead. It just needs to dry out.

well the dirt I added seems to have done my garden good. I have plain old 10 from langstroth hives, actually 4 deeps, one with a nuc stuck on top for a combine, and a nuc where I had a swarm trap out and one of my hives absconded to the nuc. (the one I'm now merging the small nuc on top of. Hopefully I did a good job of taping the wood on top of there, or the bees will just avoid the drippy frame, all the brood was up in the nuc with the young mated queen that the cutout and swarm bees made from my hive's eggs.

In other words I have too many bees. Not sure how this rain is going to affect my sugar bill this year, I'm feeding quite a lot. 3 hives are swarm/cutout "wild" bees, one east texas vsh queen moved her children to the nuc, one beeweaver hive, a little hot for my taste but they are tough and productive.

drainage issues are pretty much limited to my corner lot which catches water from 2 or 3 blocks up the hill if we get a lot of rain, and the backyard that the corner lot and the slight grade behind my fence drain into. I used to have french drains but they pulled too much water away from part of my foundation so I took them out. I can siphon the lot with a 100 ft garden hose to drain water from a dip on top of the soil to the street.

It is a bit scary when it rains this much

We got more rain here also in the early morning hours. I have to keep shifting the flower pots from the sunny part of the porch to under the roof to keep them from drowning. Never had that problem before.
So you've been a bee keeper for a while then. Yeah, I'm finding bees are interesting little critters. : ) So far this bunch is friendly enough/ nobody has been stung even with our coming and going around the hive on the porch off and on all during the day. The rain coming on the porch sideways has kept me from taking the lid off and refilling the empty feeder but they seem content enough with all the stuff blooming around the yard (vitex, larkspur, salvia, oxalis, sunflowers etc.)
I helped my boss do a cut out at a barn a few weeks ago. We didn't bring enough nucs or frames. We were fooled by the initial look of them on the first trip there; couldn't tell how big the colony was until we got to work on cutting the comb out. We'll be better prepared if we do that again.
Been wanting to plant okra seed but it seems like the ground too wet in the garden. Does anyone know if okra seed will rot or will it go ahead and germinate in soggy soil? I probably need to make the bed higher (raise it more) before planting.

I planted my okra seeds in the mud. I had to re-sow because I think some were washed away or the sprouts were eaten by snails or roly polies, but I now have about 18 okra plants. They are sort of stagnating because of all the rain and cooler temps, but they're okay.

We picked up another inch of rain last night. That brings the total at my house to 13" since I started this thread in the middle of April.

The rain event from last night showed 1.75 on our gauge. I am so sick of this rain. Old timers always say a drought is broken with a flood.
Ok I heard a noise outback as did the dogs. Wendt to inspect and a tree top had snapped and fell over into my yard. It was strange because there wasn't much wind at all. The storm is just now moving in. Oh well guess free morning isn't free anymore.

Got 3 inches last night according to the bucket I emptied to measure it. Glad I dropped pond levels

Shelia that top could have been struck by lightening I lost a large Oak Tree last weekend to a lightening strike. I thought I smelled smoke. Lol

I saw lightening and heard thunder early this AM. Came down stairs, turned on the TV and we were just at the beginning of a large cluster of storms, I unplugged everything, again...I don't know how much rain we got this time. I stopped counting. I don't think rain was even predicted last night. Today was beautiful tho.

I heard high winds as I was going to bed. We picked up 2.5" and I live just about a mile south of Sheila.

The rain can make wood swell and over grow the leafs, as well as IF there is any bug damages, and then the weight snaps the tops. Limbs too will give, try to stay out from under the trees til things dry out...

Picked up almost 1/2" of rain early this morning. The good news is that we're not forecasted to have rain the rest of the week. Yippee!!

none for tomorrow? I knew Monday was scheduled to be dry.

Here there is a 70% chance for this afternoon and evening, 50% chance for tonight.