glad you got the rain. I to have been on the hole, everything has been going thru above Ft. smith or south of Poteau. We got a little over 2" 5-14, and then a small shower a few days ago. But I feel sure we still are not as short on rain as you are. I hope you get more soon.

Larry

Larry,
Thanks and hope you get some soon. I have an Uncle that lives 60 miles east of Ft Smith. I know that area takes more rain than ours does. Not many trees here to sap the water. I'm hearing reports of higher amounts close to me which I expected. Will give the garden a boost. Also good timing right after I applied the activator. The garden has real good color this year and seems to be growing well. The few days of heat stressed a few plants but they looked fine yesterday. Jay

Jay,

Sounds like you got a well-timed rain. Better start your rain dance now for the next one ;-)

I was digging yesterday in the veg garden (I just couldn't resist the 75-cent plant sale) and was surprised to see how much ground moisture we still have. Still moist 1 foot down. Of course, with 90% humidity, how much moisture can you lose to evaporation?

Gardening in your neck of the woods takes dedication. You have my respect. I'm not sure how much I would garden if it wasn't so easy here. Of course, there's times, like in the fall, when I wax poetic about never having to rake leaves until I moved here ;-0

Marcy

Larry, I'm tired of this hole we live in. It seems to always split and part goes north to Fort Smith, like you said, and the other goes just south of us. Same for the tornadoes, too, so I guess I'll just quit complaining. LOL

Jay, enjoy the rain and chance to do something not in the garden!

Diane

Jay,

I was worried about your sister's place and your place when I saw the reports yesterday of 4" to 6" diameter hail near Dumas, Texas and the storms that produced the hail were moving towards the OK panhandle and Texas. Wouldn't that have been something to see? I'm glad y'all didn't have that stuff falling at your places.

Rain is always good and it is great you got some.

No rain here. None expected. No serious chance in the 7-day forecast. We're at 14" for the year so still have good soil moisture but the upper levels of the soil are drying out. The lower ones are fine. A lot of our mature trees are wilting a bit every day, but I think that's more of a reaction to the intense heat/sunlight than to dry soil.

Dawn

We had 3.7 in from 5:00 PM until 6:00 AM. We had another hard shower about 2:00 PM today, so I imagine we have had over 4 in, now. We really needed the moisture and fortunately we had no hail. South of us about 30 miles they had 8-10 in of rain, hard winds, some hail and now flash flooding. We are a land of extremes. Jay, I hope you get more rain. It seems like it is your turn. Jan

Jan,

If you see this, your county's under a tornado watch until 10 p.m. I'm hoping you get the rain and not the tornado.

Dawn

Thanks for the info Dawn. We are sunny right now but there is a really nasty looking cloud to the east of us. Our storms normally come from the west but when they come from the east they are usually bad. Hopefully, we will just get rain. Hope you get some rain. Jan

Jan,

I can see a flood warning near you, so I guess someone got rain. Is the Oklahoma part of the flood warning east of you?

We're OK here in terms of deep moisture. It is just the top few inches of the soil that are dry....but, of course, that includes the annual veggies and flowers, so I've been watering them when I can. I don't think we'll be in real drought danger until we go another month without rain, and I really can't imagine that will happen. Will it? The only thing that really worries me is that the last half of May and all of June are usually our rainiest period and nothing is falling, so that could signal the beginning of a trend I'd rather not see.

The wild critters are having a harder time finding water though as some ponds dry up and some creeks get very low. The birds, butterflies and bunnies all come to puddles I make on the edge of the gravel driveway and drink. I wet down a fairly large area for the butterflies and moths to do their puddling. Sometimes in the early mornings I see raccoon and possum tracks near the larger puddles as well. Tim used to get excited when he arrived home and saw the puddles because he thought it meant rain had fallen. Now he knows it means I've just been out there making puddles for the wild things. For our puddling efforts, and the water I put in the lily pond, we are being rewarded with 1,000,0001 frogs. Frogs of every size and shape. The racket they make at night is deafening.

I'm sort of dreading the arrival of the water bill, but with all the produce the garden gives us, I think it is justified. I might not feel that way by mid-July though.

Dawn

The storms were like Scott said a while back. They either hit or miss you. It just seems they have steered around us for so long. Got almost another tenth after I left for church. 17 miles east of here where I attend church they only received .35 hundredths. I left church and headed to Liberal to eat with my step dad. Drove through real heavy rain. And the area that got such heavy rains 2 weeks ago got hit hard again. What wheat the rain and wind didn't take down is standing in water up to a foot deep in the playa lakes. Seems it goes from one extreme to another. I then heard one man in Liberal said they were waiting to go home so the storm would move out. Said they had 2.79 last night and now almost 15 inches for the year. And he said it was hard to tell how much his wheat had been hurt. We are now around 8 inches for the year. Our trouble is we have never got enough since the drought to built up much sub soil moisture. I hate to say it but we need some big rains. I know hail comes along with them. So kind of a double edged sword. My grass here had turned almost brown. This will brighten it up for a few days. But with warmer temps later in the week if we don't get anymore won't last long.

Jan how are your plants doing? Jay

My daughter and son were both traveling from OKC to here this afternoon and ran into very heavy rain and high winds about 60 miles east of here. That maybe the area with flash flooding, Dawn. Jay we had good moisture all spring until about a month ago. We sure needed this rain. You have missed out on several rains we have had now and even last fall. As my husband says you are one day closer to your big rain, hope it comes soon without the hail.
Jan