Hoping for Rain

You would think with the frequent periods of rainfall we've been getting this summer the ground would be remaining moist. Not so.

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 . . .