This part of Texas started May with a rainfall deficit but during the month, we "officially" received 11.5 inches of rain. The farm total has been closer to 15 inches.
Thankfully it didn't come all at once but in some ways that might have been better, or at least if it was spread over a few days. Instead, it rained on and off almost every day for a month which helped prevent major widespread flooding of cars and homes but caused the ground to just become supersaturated.
At the top edge of this photo you can see my car parked and in the middle of the photo is where I usually park the car. I have already gotten a mower stuck, I was not about to get the car stuck this time, so I parked in the high spot of the yard.
Still, the garden and indeed the whole farm, is just SO wet with water. It's standing everywhere that there is a low spot, including here in the garden...
The back of the garden is really wet but at least the middle is a little higher (where the veggies are) so there is not as much standing water...
...but at the front, it's really standing. The weed cloth fabric we have lets water permeate, but we're guessing the ground is too saturated to absorb any more water. The gate won't even close because the wood is swollen. I had to use a brick to keep it closed. Oh and of course weeds are filling a couple of unused beds because I have not been able to get out there to weed them.
The veggies seem to be fine. We have had the automated watering system off for the entire month of May and it's still producing veggies. We just used Mother Nature's soaker hose, ha.
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| Mosquitoes, image courtesy of wikicommons |
Of course all of this standing water means MOSQUITOES...clouds of mosquitoes. I wore my rubber mud boots and shorts, and my knees have bites on them. I did wear a long sleeve shirt. They are horrible little things, that's for sure.
This was the yard last weekend when I tried to mow and it was left a mess...
...but it bounces back nicely. This was Saturday (notice the sky, rain was coming) but it wasn't too bad. Of course I couldn't mow so this coming weekend it will be definitely be ready. BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS...
Here is the forecast for this week. WOO HOO! NO RAIN! Sure, highs near 90 but they said it would just be hot and sunny all week with no real rain threat. That means we'll have a week of things drying out. Hopefully this weekend will be dry and ready for work...I'll have my work cut out for me, that's for sure.
Pouring down rain here at the moments. more rain for tomorrow then a break and more showers for Sat.
ReplyDeleteWas only able to mow part of our yard yesterday. Still have water puddles standing everywhere and our ditch is about 1/2 full so no going down there with the mower. It may be July before we can mow our ditch.
I must say; have really been blessed with rain so far. About July & August we will complain about cracks in the yard.
Oh, My, here comes our thunder storms; heavy rain & wind.
Everyone take care & stay safe; especially those that are in flood territory.
We went ALL day sunny and clear, no rain! Sorry you are having more again. There are parts of the farm I'm worried about the grass taking over and reclaiming the paths/trails, ugh. Hoping it does stay dry all week. We remember cracks in the yard all too well. Stay safe!!!
DeleteOnce the rain finally quit; we had received 1 1/2 inches
DeleteWow, you have definitely had a lot of rain. Hope your forecast is for less for a little while anyway. Give things a chance to dry out.
DeleteThat is a lot of water! We are getting soggy here and I am not happy about the rain everyday. I need to go outside and spry paint a few things.
ReplyDeleteHope you got to paint. It's just so humid and yucky when there is so much rain.
Deleteand my ginormous trees are stressed due to lack of rain! do what i do for mosquitoes. i burn incense sticks. just 3 or 4 of them burning make the squiters scatter. it's cheap, smells sort of nice (patchouli) and works!
ReplyDeleteWe wish we could send some water your direction, we have plenty ha. Oooh I didn't realize incense did that. We have some we LOVE, I need to try that out. Thanks!!!
DeleteStanding water everywhere and hordes of mosquitoes - your Farm looks like my yard. I am happy our drought has been broken but I wish it had not been all in a few weeks. Like the Farm, I got over 15 inches in total. At least the frogs and toads are enjoying it. Hoping we do not have a very dry summer now.
ReplyDeleteI heard that applying tea tree oil to the skin repels mosquitoes, so I tried it a few days ago when I spent hours in my garden and it worked.
Water water everywhere! Yes, the drought is broken but we're good for a bit. Oh we have some tee tree oil too from when I was doing some soap/bath stuff. Will try that out. Plus it smells good.
DeleteNo rain n FL for over 7 weeks now. just awful. Will take the rain .
ReplyDeleteMany, many years ago there was a report in the Parade Magazine in our Sunday newspaper about a research project using vitamin B1 to repel mosquitoes. It's available in pill form and is not dangerous to take. It causes our bodies to emit a smell that we cannot detect, but the mosquitoes can, and they don't like it. Our family camped once a month with a camping club, which meant that we were outdoors in the evenings sitting around a campfire every night. We always took a pill in the late afternoon or just before our fairly early dinner. We hardly ever got bitten while others suffered as you did. We didn't need smelly bug spray. I've looked for information about this recently and found conflicting results of tests. I just know that it worked for us. Even now, several decades later, I keep a bottle of B1 for those times when we might want to go to the park for a summer concert or when others go camping. Good luck with the rain and the mosquitoes. I think of the humidity you're going to have this week with that heat and don't envy you one bit. We're having some of that here in St. Louis this week, and I'm not looking forward to it. Thank goodness we have air conditioning to help us recover after we've been outside.
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