IT'S RAINING!!!!

Richmond VA

It hasn't rained here in at least 3 weeks


It looks like the entire east coast north of the Carolina-Va line is finally getting some wet wet (hopefully cooling) rain





YES!!!!!!

...at the other end of the state. Not as much as I would have liked, but better than nothing.

3 weeks now I want to fix a leak in the front of the house but I'm not about to tear out an 8-ft long board that's rotted on one end until it's not raining. So far the duct tape and plastic is holding.

there are two obvious reasons

1. God hates Massey Energy
2. The governor's giant Bobblehead is acting as an umbrella

:cry:

well all our plans were inside today anyway

the Hanover tomato festival should be a slow hot steamy cooker this afternoon :scared:

For real. As I was walking, I thought it was ME, and started freaking out, but it was actually the air: a sweaty, funkadelic, musky smell that just hangs in the air on every single droop of humidity. UGH.

I just looked out and it's not currently raining but the sidewalks are wet, like we had a small shower. We could really use a good pour.

...seems like it has rained here every day for the last three weeks! Well, it hasn't really, but we have had a rain chance about everyday. Actually, it has come at a very slow rate, which is good for Texas in the summer. We have had a very mild summer so far....and wet. Thanks to all you east coasters for taking those 100 degree days for us. I know how tough they are, I worked in unairconditioned shops in Texas for 25 yrs!

seriously almost nonstop. Three times it dumped a foot of snow on us in that period.

Maybe this will cut down some of those damned ants that were out early in massive numbers this year due to their food stores being soaked in the winter (the office buglady said it was unprecedented)

...and there was a mound of fire ants right underneath it. I got a couple of bites when I picked up the gauge. I get about a hundred bites a year from the damned things. I have had over a hundred bites at one time...had to come out of my pants in front of god and everybody! Not that paiful, but the itch!

a welcome relief!

keep them watered enough in 105 degree heat, so I just let them go. I was so glad to see it raining this morning. I hope we have a couple of days of a soaker rain.

(I'm over in Bon Air. :hi:)

went back to bed and at 7:30 it was actually raining.

We have been watering the garden every other day but the yard is a crunchy yellow mess- I usually don't care about the yard much (haven't had to mow for 3 weeks) but we have clover that seems to be keeping the rabbits out of the garden.

yesyes

:hi:

(at my lake house in NC). So when I saw your post, I figured you weren't far geographically from me. It's been so hot here lately I wasn't sure if my septic tank was leeching or not. Good to see it was rain.

And dry weather! Haven't had that here since last summer!

So maybe you're getting our rain on this climate confused earth now!

Started about 3AM, still going on from time to time all day today.

Our plants are happy.

mark

It's been bad. One could likely walk the Maury from Lexington to Ben Salem without getting one's shorts wet. I was told that one could jump from rock to rock clear across the James River at Glasgow. I've scarcely fished at all since early May, because the pressure on the poor critters, especially straight through the mating season, has been harsh.

But believe it or not, I've seen it worse. A couple of years ago my favorite spot on the Maury stayed at 12-18 inches for most of the summer, where a healthy water level is 20-30 inches, and the fish were dealing with the cow-poop diseases that the Commonwealth somehow just can't figure out comes from cow poop.

Apparently I drive over the Maury all the time on my stepfather's "shortcut" down Rte. 11 to "miss the trucks" on 81

The bridge in particular is a memorial bridge that is often adorned with flags. Going south, you can see the Lexington dam, a modest affair that somehow manages to kill a student every 3-5 years (and much more often than that in the distant past).

Going north, you can look downstream, and if you can see a particular spot where the bluffs appear to roll straight across the river, then the water is below 18 inches.

Unfortunately, the only portion of Route 11 in Rockbridge that's a pain in the ass happens to be that section right there, because of the stupid Wal-Mart and the interchange with I-64, there are about half a dozen traffic lights, and therefore it's impossible to get through the Lexington area at more than 35mph. The same deal exists in Staunton, about 35 miles north.

Using Route 11 through Rockbridge has still been a great idea for the past 30 years, because the Buffalo Creek bridge on I-81 (where the rock wall is painted by the VMI kids each year) has been defective and undergoing emergency repairs since the 1980s. That means that every few months to few years, construction creates miles-long truck traffic jams, and the limited number of exits in Rockbridge means that it's easy to get trapped on I-81 for hours.

Yippee!!

May gardens are all happy.

But the storm knocked a tree down over the horse fence. My son and I could not move it

Luckily the horses had three big round bales to pick from so they ignored the gaping escape route. I just had a cheapie chains saw delivered, so i got to do a very rapid assembly, find the big jug of bar and chain oil and hope the thing would work.

It did. No escaped horses....

I'm a lumberjack now!


Hope all who need rain get it, and all who don't don't!

We've been in a weird pattern where small thunderstorms spring up in the afternoon and seem to be headed for us -- but then take a sudden jag and slide by. We haven't had more than a two-minute sprinkle in weeks.

By yesterday, most of the lawns in town were turning brown -- which is unheard of for early July. The ground cover on my front lawn was not only brown but went crunch, crunch when you walked on it.

So this all-day soaker is *really* welcome -- but it takes more than one rain to undo the damage, especially since a lot of it tends to just run off when the ground is baked this hard.

The last two cool, rainy summers were the pits -- but what I'd really like to see is one of those summer patterns when a front comes through about every fifth day to provide some rain and clear the air and the other four days are warm and beautiful.

ha ha.

Recommended for good news.

We've had a very mild summer here in the west, the 100+ degree days seem to have moved to the Eastern Seaboard.

Of course, there's still the rest of this month and August.

:hi:

it wants to downpour but has only occasionally drizzled.

We need rain and I don't feel like watering my veggie garden today! :)