A Most Welcomed Visitor

Hip, hip, hooray!

Finally, we got rain!  It has been about 5 weeks since we had any precipitation, and along with daily high (90's) temperatures for the past several weeks, every living plant was showing a level of stress.  Some plants were wilted, some were dying, some had already died.

all that grey is torrential rain pouring down,  imagine all those shrubs blowing wildly
(you had to see the video,which unfortunately is not uploading, to get the full impact)

Yesterday morning, the forecast was predicted at 30% heavy rain in the afternoon, with the percentage increasing to 60% heavy rain in the evening.  I sat outside watching the clouds move in.  I was getting excited. At 4:00 P.M., the little droplets of rain could be heard on the tin roof of the pergola, and then...major lightning, thunder, and rain.

Buddy is scared of loud noises, and when I opened the door to the house, he made a mad dash inside.  Buddy has never been inside the house before, but I guess he thought any place was safer than the outside deck.  On his own accord, Buddy went into the kitchen, found a corner, and curled up.  There he stayed.  Nothing or no one was going to make him move.

The grand total - 1.3 inches.  That amount of rain will get us comfortably through another week as the temperatures are supposed to continue in the 90's.

One more day, beyond today, without that rain; would have been disastrous.  We were crossing the line from a substantial drought into a devastating drought - not a place we ever want to be.

After the storm passed, the sun came out.  The earth had been refreshed.  The birds were singing.  Buddy is back in his yard.

I took a short walk.  It was very humid.  I felt like I was in a jungle, as if by magic; the plants plumped and multiplied, closing the immediate world in around me.  Works for me!

Unfortunately, we did lose another huge tree along the farm lane.  From the deck, Glenn saw the strike hit at the end of the pasture.  Later, on further inspection, we discovered the damaged, yellow-poplar; which is sited in a narrow strip between the pasture and our farm road.  Some of its large, fallen branches blocked the road.  The three stems of the tree clump all displayed straight, exposed, fresh wounds so characteristic of a lightning strike.  The only positive is that this tree is in the exact same location where we had lost several trees earlier this spring.  Glenn never had a chance to clean up that old storm damage.  So, he does not have a new mess, just more of a mess.

Hmmm...maybe he was waiting for...no, not possible.