The Rain Train

It's days like this that I am reminded why I looked up ole mel and decided to borrow from his style and go with raised bed gardens.  It has been raining for 3 and a half days and I have gotten that many inches as well.  The yard has standing water in places ditches running over and everything is like a wet sponge.  My garden boxes are high and dry and look like they have shot up in the last few days from the window I see sweet pea blooms, and big brocli heads and big bush bean plants and it looks down right lush.  Several asperiguys have blossomed into ferns escaping our notice in the rain.  I need to wade out there and pick some stuff but I am kinda hoping the down poors will give me a break.  The neighbors garden looks like a lake and to think that mine was saved by a chubby ex engineer I saw on Pbs years ago.

Cappy - wishful thinking on a break in the rain. 

Looks like lots of wet stuff through the end of the week. 

I have had downpours multiple times daily since last Wednesday. 

I have to put on my rain boots and slicker just to reach the compost bin to dump the kitchen scraps each day.

  Yuck!

Enough already.  Reminds me of Aaron Neville's song about the 1927 flood - "they're trying to wash us away".

Stay dry my friend.

The rain train may be finally ending for a few days.  Hopefully it's dry enough to go back to playing outside.  The back corner has standing water and the compost [pile has a moat around it.  The yard is like a wet sponge I'll need at least 2 days of sun before it is dry enough to mow and the way the grass has shot up that is gonna be a real chore.  I am not complaining though.  The ligustrums are blooming and they are now the dominant morning aroma

Thank you for sharing

Cappy - the refrain "Their tryin to wash us away" has run through my mind many times daily over the last 2 1/2 weeks. 

Thanks for sharing.

I like Aaron Neville's version as well.  He looks like a bad a biker dude but has the voice of an angel.

I am sitting on my patio and see a "blue bird" sky.  There is a nice breeze.  The yard is still very wet.  My composts bins also have a moat around them.  I am looking at my berm-in-progress and trying to figure out how long it will take to dry up enough to till the grass clippings into the saw dust.  Then the yard has t dry up enough to get a trailer load of compost to the back yard.

Sigh.

Just sooo glad to see sunshine.

Well I hope the sunshine is coming our way because I am fed up with the clouds and rain, rain, and more rain.  I saw worms just washing down our gravel driveway while I was outside watching my grandson play in the rain.

We are finally getting a bit of rain.  Virtually no snow pack this year, so we need lots of rain this spring to get things off and growing.  Also, an early warm spring, so I may be looking at more irrigation than normal.

One thing I can tell ya is the humidity things are way wrong.  As the yard dries and the puddles shrink the humidity is 100% guaranteed.  You can see the water vapor if you look twords the sun and just walking to the mail box you are wet.

Cappy, I've visited Texas and Florida in the summer when stepping outside felt like hitting a soft wall. I don't know how people, animals and veggies survive that kind of hot humidity. I'm a wimp.

The humidity thingy says 50% but thats probably in some parking lot somewhere.  In my slowly drying yard its much more than that and it can be sen shimmering when ya look down the street.  If no rain tonight then hopefully tomorrow we will be able to play in the yard with out making mud.

Yeah!  3 days without rain. Bluebird skies.  DH needs to mow.  Actually lovely.  Humidity is low (60%), skies are blue and there is a soft breeze.  Sigh! 

The standing water out back finally all soaked in and I got the yard all push mowed hard pushing in the lush thick grass.  tomorrow will be weed eating and some weeding in the boxes.

Cappy - have you been washed away?  Over 10" of rain in the month of April.  That is stupid, crazy, ridiculous even for south Louisiana. 

Just how bad is it? My Uncle died Saturday.  His funeral was Tuesday.  His casket had to be stored in the Mausoleum because the ground was too wet to dig his grave.  The Funeral Home MAY be able to dig his grave tomorrow.  If they are able to dig the internment will have to happen within an hour.  Dig the grave, lower the casket then fill it before the sides collapse. Unfortunately the grave is not vaulted - lined with concrete - a common practice in south Louisiana.

Beautiful blue skies with just a few puffy, white clouds, a nice breeze and relatively low humidity.

Sigh!

Loving it.

The rain train is back on track and it has rained on our yard 8 days in a row now.  Sadly with the heat wet and humidity I got out my boots and headed for the garden to find the cauliflower had rotted.  In like 2 days it just turned into smelly slimy mess.  I pulled it up and put it in our compost heap.  The beans and peppers are doing ok and the Okra are jumping up but I guess the steam bath was too much for the Cauliflower.

I'm waiting for Has55 to check in. First the tornado, now rain.

Sanderson - I saw that Has posted last night, so apparently he's okay.  Has anyone heard from Cajunsmoke or any of the others?

We've got the train this week.  Yesterday afternoon, Buford (which is actually south of us by about 4 miles) got almost 2-1/2" of rain in one hour.

It's supposed to do this all week.

And it rained so hard downtown that the interstate rail system got completely backed up & flooded the "connector" going thru the middle of Atlanta.  (The connector is where I-75 & I-85 join & run thru town before separating near the airport.)

Drought or Flood, pick your poison.

We go 24 days without a drop of rain and July-like temperatures, and then we get rain every day for 8 days with moderate temperatures.

Every time we tried to go out into the garden this weekend, it started to rain with thunder and lightning.

We have plants that need to be trained up onto the trellises and fences, and it is too wet to even walk out there now.  Our pole beans have decided to use the squash and zukes rather than climb the fence behind.

The tomatoes we grow for our family members need additional tying to their stakes, but it is a no-no to touch wet tomato plants.

We got slammed with the rain a few times this weekend.  About 10-1/2  inches of rain over the ten days.  Thank goodness we are predominately growing in raised beds and using Mel's Mix.  It was easy to plant right after a rain.  The mini pine bark nuggets in the aisles shifted a little with the torrential rains, but I just scuff my feet along the aisles when I walk and kick the mini pine bark nuggets back into place.  I am afraid the tomatoes are going to get some kind of disease after all the rain and humid weather.

We got a couple of short showers yesterday afternoon, but not nearly as bad as we were expecting.  Apparently it went a bit east of us.

Did anyone see that story about fish floating down the roads in NJ???

I havent been pestering yall that long and the name cajunsmoke caught my notice.  I have several friends that would fit like a glove.  .  come to think about it it fits me too .

Just watching the rain now, not as bad  as many of you but it is curtailing my activities. I am hoping that the green strawberries do not give up before the sun is due to shine in a couple of days.

Meanwhile, it does encourage me to do some indoor work like file paperwork and perhaps do some housework.

Cappy, How are you two faring? Drop us a line.

Thanks for asking Sanderson Peggy and I are fine and did not flood.  Many of our friends and family did however.  Our yard is a soggy mess and I had to finish cutting grass with my boots on the mower actually drowned out several times as I mowed over standing water.  We have gotten right at 3 feet of rain in the last 3 weeks 2 foot of it was in 3 days.  Thats alot even for us.  Praise the lord our area is kinda high and we were spared.  We were on an island for a while and couldn't go anywhere but being country folk with a well stocked pantry and freezer we didn't need to.  Needless to say not much to post about our gardens and yard in this humid heat few things are growing and the weeds are taking over.  If it ever dries up and cools off a bit we have lots of work ahead of us reclaiming our boxes.  We will let yall know when we move into our fall play mode.

Good to hear that you were spared. I'm sorry that so many were not as fortunate.