Any rain is too much for me. I need to get my hay cut, raked and baled.

I hear you. No rain is good . We need to dry out its about time to cut corn for silage and the alfalfa is ready to cut again. You couldn't get a silage cutter in the field if you tried not even with rice tires HA. Ha. We got 1/2" of rain yesterday evening out of one single little cloud, I could not believe it. That makes 4" for the holiday weekend. Stop now!!!!!

The only silver lining i can see is the yard looks great and my mowing skills are top notch.

We have a new rabbit family living under the metal,pipe stack. I know they drive gardeners nuts but I don't have anything they can hurt so I watch them while I feed the donkeys.

I was excited until I saw that southern Oklahoma would get hit. At least it's not a predicted 8".

I'm sorry if ya'll are just drying out. But, pretty please, be patient so we and others won't go back into a drought.

I've been picking blushing tomatoes. Haven't eaten any, but the local Wal-mart has been selling fresh grown Arkansas beef steak tomatoes. They're pretty good, but definitely not purple or black flavored. My cherry blacks are almost sufficiently ripe.

I might go ahead and water the hugel bed early morning, tomorrow. We're bone dry. I doubt we'll get 4". At least the hugel bed will survive a drench, if it does.

What I'm really excited about is all the peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppers!! Oh, it's so much fun to watch them grow.

Robert, Well, what in the world have you been doing all month on all these lovely, dry, sunny days???? OH, that's right, you haven't been having dry sunny days.

Maybe the rain will miss y'all. Can you get the hay done tomorrow if the rain holds off until Monday? Folks here that cut in May and who haven't been able to haul the bales out of the fields now have those bales sitting in grass about as tall as the round bales. They probably could get a second cutting, but they'll have to haul the first cutting out of the fields first.

Stockergal, Would you please stop hogging all the rain? Bon and I are going to have to water if the rain misses us again, so send your rain north or south to one of us, and we'll send you heat, unrelenting wind (at least it dries up everything) and sunshine.

I love rabbits and I feed them. Think of it as a bribe to stay out of my garden. I just toss a little grain on the ground and then they calmly walk over and eat it. If I am not outside early enough in the day, they are sitting in the feeding spot, waiting for me when I finally make it outdoors. Sometimes a squirrel or two is waiting there with them. Or a deer. Or wild turkeys. Our friends take great delight in the wildlife watching at our place. Either I have the rabbits well-trained, or they have me well-trained. I get a rabbit in the garden once or twice a year and they do minimal damage. Usually they find a way under the fence where something else like a possum, armadillor or skunk has dug an area outside the garden fence and softened up the soil enough that the bunnies just kind of slip underneath it.

Bon, I hope my part of southern OK gets hit. The rain has mostly missed us in June, though our mesonet station has had a whole lot of rain (I think 13-14" though ours is about half that). This is the time of the year we often end up in a dry slot and don't get much rain, so anytime the QPF shows a significant amount of rain is forecast, I get excited. Not too excited, though, as the QPF often is really really wrong. I hope that the parts of southern OK that have flooded so badly this month, including parts of Carter, Garvin and Murray counties, don't get hit so hard again.

If I water because I doubt rain will fall, then we'll get a lot of rain. If I don't water because I think we'll get a lot of rain, then we won't get any. I can't win for losing when it comes to rainfall. It was windy today and is supposed to be windier tomorrow and that sure will dry out plants quickly. Our best chance of rain is Tuesday, so we have to get through a dry, hot and windy Monday before things start improving...if the rain even makes it here at all.

Dawn

I'm not far from stockergal and I'm sure if we team up, we could blow all this impending rain toward those that need it. We had a mini-downpour yesterday WITH HAIL the size of b-b's. Lasted about an hour = almost 2 inches. There has GOT to be a happy medium or something close. I do see the hay farmers around us are paying close attention to the weather and are doing well. Glad SOMETHING is. We are seriously considering buying a tractor. Crazy that we need one with just 2 & 1/2 acres but DH's parents are aging and live next door. No way we can keep up with the all this land without one. ESPECIALLY with ALL this rain........it's truly feast or famine. Not to hijack the thread, but anyone got recommendations? We're looking at a JD 1023E.

Yeah, i am not holding out much hope for more rain here this week in Durant. We had rain Friday and Sunday early morning. Looks like we might hit triple digits one day this week too. I am not complaining though, we have had reasonable temperatures thus far, I cant believe it is July already and no triple digits under our belts (here of course).

Good Morning Y'all,

When I woke up this morning and saw that a huge swath of OK has a Flash Flood Watch in effect from this afternoon through Wednesday, I felt left out for about 15 seconds.....and then I felt relieved that we aren't expected to get enough rain this far southeast to have flooding. And, I feel bad for all of you who are in the Flood Watch area. Please stay safe.

The 7-day QPF rainfall totals are even higher today than they were yesterday. I cannot help thinking that's not a good thing. Too much rainfall at one time is just too much no matter how much a person needed rain last year or the year before or even the year before that.

Paula, I think Mother Nature has been trying to make it up to y'all that the rain missed you so often during the recent multi-year drought, but dang it, does she have to make it up to y'all all in one year? That seems to be her goal. At least the hail was small so you're not going to have to replace the roof again.

If you're going to buy a tractor, can you get one with flotation devices on the side (like those on a pontoon boat) and an outboard motor? It might come in handy this year to be able to mow while your land is under water.

We're only expected to get an inch or two of rain down here, which will be plenty. I'm going to head out to the garden in a few minutes, harvest the last of the bush beans and clean out the corn bed, and then I'm going to sow some seeds. They ought to sprout well with the rain that's coming and we aren't supposed to get so much that I have to worry the seeds will be floating down the Red River. I suppose Tim will mow like a maniac today to get ahead of the rain.

Now, let's hope none of this week's storms turn severe. It's bad enough that flooding is going to occur.

Dawn

Totally off topic: My daughter was going to the chiropracter in Tulsa, waiting to turn into his lot when a driverless John Deere mower cut off the Suburban next to her and rolled into her car. Minor ding, but the homeless guy on the corner laughed so hard he fell into the grass. It was even captured on video on the doc's security camera.

LOL

Crap. The estimates for this coming storm at the eye is +6.72

Amy, that is crazy. I guess the mower just thought it was time to mow and nobody showed up. HA HA HA

They are really moving along on our shop, I think they might have all the walls and roof on before this rain hits. Yea!!!!!they are really putting it up fast, love it. I just have to get used to the big building where there has been nothing but a slab of concrete.

I am holding off on mowing till after the rain, it will probably be a mistake. I am hoping the taller grass will slow down the runoff.

I bought my miniature pumpkin and gourd seeds. I will plant them when the rain is over. I have the old lot fences still up where the horse barn used to be and the ground is good there, I'll just work up,a small area with a shovel and brick it off. We will see what happens come October.

I have no idea how much rain to expect the predictions are varied, guess we will wait and see.

Tonight our local TV met said that Lake Texoma could spill over the spillway at the Denison Dam for an unprecedented third time (the second time also was unprecedented) this year----likely by this weekend if the heavy rainfall currently forecast for the Lake Texoma watershed is as heavy as forecast. That is mind-boggling, and surely is bad news for businesses still partially underwater and heavily damaged from prior flooding this year.

He is referring not so much to rain in the counties very close to the lake like mine where the forecast rainfall is fairly skimpy, but more to the counties slightly farther away that are expected to get significantly heavier rainfall than us and all that rain eventually drains into tributaries that drain into larger tributaries that eventually drain into the lake. I refuse to believe this will happen. If heavy rain falls to our west, the Red River will rise again. We are so tired of having a river with tons of water in it. In our area, this is not normal. Does Mother Nature not remember that normally in the summertime the Red River near us is so low that you can walk across it or drive your Mule ATV across it?

Are y'all ready? You're almost all going to get that rain before I do. We are watching closely to see if the front stalls near I-44 as it is expected to do. If that happens, y'all get flooding and I don't. If it moves 50 miles closer to us before it stalls, we get flooding too. The NWS moved us from the 1-2" rainfall area to the 2-4" rainfall area, which caught my attention, but I still think we're more likely to miss the heavy rainfall than to get it. My brain is so conditioned to being passed over by summer rainfall that I cannot imagine raindrops will be falling on my head.....

Got the mud boots ready everyone?

Stockergal, I was just telling Tim this morning that I hoped y'all could get the shop enclosed and at least roofed before the rain falls. When we built our garage in 2004, it rained every day they attemped to work on it. That went on for at least 6 to maybe 8 weeks.

Amy, Great story! I got a great laugh out of it.

Bon, Relax. The estimates are usually wrong. Sometimes you get a lot more than they say (perish the thought!) and sometimes you get a lot less. In my experience, we rarely get even close to the exact amount forecast. Often, when they show us getting 1-2" we'll get either none at all, a quarter-inch or 6". It makes life interesting, doesn't it?

Dawn

the ground is just now getting solid enough to hold up a tractor in the low areas. I will probably make around 300 round bales if I can ever get started. It will take me a little while to cover that much ground.

So, after the rain passes through and it gets all wet and muddy again, how long until it will get solid enough to hold up a tractor in the low areas? A week? Two? Longer?

Our lowest wet spots still are somewhat wet and we've been pretty hot and dry lately. At least everything up higher around the house is pretty dry---for another day or so. Today Tim mowed all around the house and garden and other buildings but not the fields. I watered the plants in containers but not the garden, and things in the garden looked pretty dry but weren't extremely wilted. I saw some wilted pigweed, but it was outside the garden so I don't care about it. In fact, I hope it dies.

Today I got a good look at the river north of the Gainesville bridge, since the water has dropped and you can look and see how the floodwaters carved out the banks and sandbars. It looks like the river was remodeled. I wonder what the heavy runoff from rain to our west will do this time?

I think we'll be talking about this rainy year for a long time. After all those drought years, we did need a wet year, but I think it is too wet.

It certainly is different this year. I dunno 'bout ya'll but this mowing business ...whew. Were it not for my gratitude to be able to physically weed and mow the lawn, I'd be b*tchin', I'm sure. But I can. yay me!

Dawn, I got a giggle over your pigweed. I didn't realize it, but I use it as a barometer, too.

From San Angelo, TX USA to Ottawa, Quebec CA
Now that is a BIG rain.

I'm trying hard not to feel left out...but I went to bed with the meteorologists' promises that inches, INCHES of rain would be falling with minutes. Woke up in the middle of the night, checked the radar and the mesonet. ALL that rain ended right north of us. Just POOFED. Really????

To top it off...apparently my new rain gauge got worn out in May, it hasn't registered any rain since June 1...and we have had some ;)

Lisa

Johnny, It is the longest string of rain showers I've seen in a while...and every drop has missed us so far. There's been a long string of flood advisories, flash flood watches, flash flood warnings and flood warnings too. This rain event sure has spread out the flooding across a wide area too.

For a long time the rain was only west and north of us and I didn't mind that it all had missed us, but now some has fallen south and east of us and, like Lisa, I'm kinda starting to feel like the rain is avoiding us.

Lisa, Does your rain gauge have a crack in it? That happened to one of ours.

The rain has missed our place so far, but I expect we'll eventually get some.

Before we went to bed last night, I looked at the radar and thought you were likely to get rain there in your area overnight, but that we might not get any until today or tonight. Then we were up much of the night with two house fires in town, and I looked at the radar on my phone and saw the storms had poofed over y'all, and never came near us. I watched it for several hours and figured we'd eventually get rain today.

We are still waiting.

With flooding in the forecast, I'm okay if we don't get 2 or 4 or 6" of rain. The excess rainfall can miss us and I'd be perfectly happy with that. I'd be happy with a measly little inch to make the flowers happy. Tim expects more house fires tonight (an arsonist apparently is at work here) but I've been expecting rain would start and we might be doing road closures and high water rescues instead. At this point, it seems like we're more likely to see what he's expecting than what I'm expecting. Sometimes the rain is just incredibly slow to arrive, but if it gets any slower, Christmas will arrive before the rain does.

I harvested tomatoes off everything but one row today, and I mean I stripped those plants. I didn't want to leave anything breaking color that would soak up all the rainfall and start cracking and bursting. I left one row for "later" but now that later is here, I am feeling lazy and don't want to go back out there.

We still had enough clouds to keep our temperatures a little cooler than they had been, so at least we got that bit of heat relief.

Dawn

We've had a slow rain all day. Only 3/4" in the gauge. It looked like we were going to get pounded last night when we went to bed but poof no rain. I think we will probably get more tonight, it can move out any time.

Dawn, I hope you get some of my share. HA. Sorry to hear about the house fires, maybe the rain will keep the bad guy indoors tonight.

I've been a little under today I think I have a summer cold so I have just piddled around today. I hate to feel bad during the summer. Oh well tomorrow wil be better.

stockergal, We have gotten rain. I don't want to give the impression we haven't. It has rained for about 3 hours so far tonight and we have approximately 0.03" in the rain gauge. Another 97 hours of rain at this rate and we'll have the inch of rain I was hoping for. Do you think we're going to have 97 straight hours of rain? I don't think so.

Since it didn't rain much yet, Tim went to bed early, hoping to get a few hours of sleep before the fire pagers go off. It's been a fairly quiet year overall, but not lately. Maybe the firefighters and cops are being paranoid expecting a repeat tonight, but they have their reasons, and I hate to say it, but I think they may be right.

Summer colds are no fun. I hope you feel better tomorrow if not sooner. It seems to me like there's been a lot of summer colds and allergies this summer already. I can't help thinking the weather is playing a role in it one way or another.

Dawn

lol, Dawn, I need the same 97 hours!!

Oh, how I wish I could send some of our rain to you, Lisa and Dawn! Yesterday I was just wishing we could spread out what we got over the upcoming weeks that will be dry, dry, dry...now, I just wish you all had some of mine!

Lisa, I wish I could send you some of the rain that's been falling here the last few hours. Luckily for us, only a portion of it has found our house so far. We have about 2.5" in the rain gauge right now, with only very light rain falling at the present time. Burneyville, to our NW, has recorded over 5.4" and when I look at the radar-indicated rainfall, I can see a part of Love County up near the Carter County line has had at least 7". Carter County also has been under the heavier band of rainfall and portions of it have received almost 8". Deja vu. This time the heavier rainfall in Carter County is further east than last time when there was that horrific flooding a couple of weeks ago, so this heavy rainfall is also affecting the I-35 corridor and the Lake Murray area.

ODOT already has closed down Scenic Hwy 77 at the Lake Murray spillway due to the large volume of water cascading over the spillway.

Carol, Thank you for being willing to share, but we're all good down here now. I agree that it would be nice if we could save the rain and spread it out. You just know that after this rainstorm passes, we will be roasting hot and humid and probably won't get rain for a while. We'll still have unbearably high heat index numbers for the next week or so even if no rain falls since the ground is so heavily saturated. I dread those higher heat index numbers, feeling it is likely to miserably hot even without considering how much worse the humidity will make it feel. The best part of today's rainshowers isn't even the rain---in my mind it is the lovely, pleasant temperatures.

Since it is raining, I'm back to my original plan to can tomatoes today. I hope it is cool outside tomorrow morning early in the day so I can do a lot of weeding in pleasant conditions.

And, I hope we don't get too much more rain here. With lower levels of the soil still heavily saturated, it won't take much rain to cause more flooding.

Dawn

the bottom has fell out here. I picked some peaches the other day and they are ripe now. I canned 12 pints last week and will probably make some jelly and can a few more.

I was watching the radar as rain mostly left us and headed your way this morning. I guess your haying plans are on hold indefinitely.

We're in pretty good shape here, but Lake Murray is 1.5 feet over the spillway, and Lake Texoma is rising again.

I'm glad I have a lot to do indoors because it is too muddy to do anything outdoors.

We received 1 1/4" rain. But more is expected tonight and tomorrow. I agree with Dawn, the heat indexes this week and next will be horrible.

This summer cold is about to get me, I feel like death warmed over. At least it's rainy and not sunny and warm or I would be trying to do work out side and really feel bad.

I think my bright idea of mowing AFTER the rain is going to turn out a mistake. Even after we mow the grass will be ready to mow again in about 2-3 days. I am not looking forward to nonstop mowing. It is so wet that the grass and weeds will grow night and day. Mowing is my least favorite job.

I hear ya, stockergal. I have mowing fatigue after last month. We didn't get flooded, so it was perpetual growth, rain, more growth and mowing. It has been a vicious circle since. I must admit, though, the grass is really pretty. Not familiar with mowing lush green grass.

I am not either Bon, this is such a strange year. my backyard is thick nice grass and the barn has thick weeds lol. I mow like a mad woman with a little pushmower bagging and throwing mulch this way and that. We are having more rain now which is not that great since I have to get some space ready for sw potato slips coming, have corn to harvest and let dry out, potatoes to dig, and still have a few onions hiding under the marigolds. I weeded yesterday and felt like I didn't get anywhere although I did find the peppers and beans. cayennes are loaded, they must have liked the shade, lol

Stockergal, You take good care of yourself. I had a summer cold in June and it really sapped my strength.

Mowing fatigue is alive and well here also and, in fact, so in weeding fatigue. When it gets this hot and muggy, who wants to be outside mowing, mowing, mowing and weeding, weeding, weeding. A three-day mowing schedule is about perfect, but who wants to mow every three days?

How is Robert ever going to get his hay cut and baled?

Bon, I'm loving the lush green-ness of the countryside as well, and the wildflowers are loving it as well. Once the really hot temperatures set in, which I guess might be next week, the heat probably will suck the green right out of a lot of the grasses and wildflowers.

Kim, I do deliberately plant peppers where taller, adjacent plants can shade them through the worst of the summer heat whenever I can. I think that some shade for peppers (and most other things) in our climate is helpful. Even 'full sun' plants don't really need sunrise-to-sunset sunlight here in the summer. I think it is too much for them in all but the coolest of summers.

Carol, Bermuda grass is evil and seems bent on achieving world domination. It is my nemesis as well. It is a battle that is hard to win.

I have done the run-for-the-house routine as rain began falling and rarely seem to make it to the house before the rain catches me and gets me. It is my own fault, as I always think I have time to do just one more thing before I go inside to avoid the rain.

I wouldn't say we were dry because we have good deep soil moisture, but the upper few inches of the soil were pretty dry. We ended up with 2.63" of rain yesterday, for which I'm grateful. I hope it closed up the cracks in the ground in the back pasture. They weren't big yet, only about 1/2" wide and maybe 2-3" deep, but once the clay soil starts cracking in summer, things only seem to go downhill. How the soil can dry out that much in the upper layers just baffles me, since we've had 52" of rain at our house so far this year (and more than that at our Mesonet station). Of course, only about 18" of that has fallen in the last month so, of course, we were getting too dry. : ) All kidding aside, heavy rainfall isn't always as helpful as everyone thinks. If the rain falls on heavily saturated soil, a lot of it just runs off quickly without soaking in so we don't get the full benefit of that rainfall.

In the garden, I have had a lot of wilting of some plant foliage in the last couple of weeks, though I think it likely was more related to the heat than the lack of moisture. I don't worry too much about wilting as long as the plants fully recover overnight, but it still worries me when I see zinnias wilting. Now that we've had decent rainfall, if we still have wilting, I'll know it is heat-related. Today, so far, nothing is wilting.

I'm going to link the year-to-date Mesonet Rainfall map. There are some numbers on this map that are astonishingly high, but we all know that in those areas, a lot of the rain ran off quickly. It just amazes me how these rainfall totals continue to climb weekly.

Still, this is the latest we've gone in the year at our house without having to water the garden since at least 2010, or maybe even 2007, so it is hard to be unhappy about that.

Dawn

OK Mesonet Map: Year-To-Date Rainfall

4.25 inches in the rain gauge, which is Tues through noon today. I was afraid if I left it it would overflow before we're done. I put out Tomato Tone and Garden Tone before the rain and put some store bought compost on, too, because the new dirt doesn't seem to have enough humus in it. When it gets hot I have straw for mulch. This IS July, right?

It's raining tigers and hyenas, right now. Shouldn't last long. Truth is, we need it. But, dang, I'm stormed out.

I'm ready for the rain to stop.

The rain is coming down, the thunder is all around and it looks like we have another hour or two to go. The Mesonet is showing 3.16, but our news just said that Grove has had 5.2 inches in 24 hours. I don't find that hard to believe at all. I have been wet for 2 days.

We got another 1.25 inches this after noon, that is 5.75 inches in 3 days. I'm done!

The TV news said Grove was at 13.3 for 72 hours. The Met stopped and asked, is that 3.3 or 13.3 and they told him 13.3. My front yard is a lake but the water is constantly flowing across and into a culvert. We are wet, wet, wet with about 3 and a quarter inches today.

Soonergrandmom, well I won't complain about my 2", I'll just keep my mouth shut and thank god we didn't get 13". I always tell my husband "it could be worse". I just am dreading the non stop mowing and trimming that's coming. I had this bright idea that I would mow after the rain and not before, just in case we flooded maybe the taller grass would slow the water. HA HA it is mid shin high already. Bad idea!!

During this rain event, I haven't really thought the rain was too bad until today. We have had rain for several days, with a few heavy bursts, then slow light rain until another burst came along, but today we had heavy, heavy rain for a long time. As the last little rain cloud is leaving the State on the east, another is approaching the State on the west. Our lakes should be full for a long time to come.

The plants in my garden are loving the weather, and most of the garden is taking it just fine, but I have big puddles forming in a few places. I hope I am able to finish the weeding while the ground is still wet and everything pulls up easily. The center part, where most of the vegetables are growing is not bad, but I have lots of things growing along the fence lines that really need to be removed, and they are getting bigger everyday.

Although the Mesonet station is not far from Grove, it just doesn't seem to be getting close to our rainfall amounts this year. Of course, I'm not getting close either since I don't even have a rain gauge out. I have a bad habit of leaving them out until they freeze and break. LOL I guess I need to buy them by the dozen.

We ended up with right at 8 inches for July. Over 5 inches of that fell Tuesday, over 1 inch both yesterday and today. We're on a hill so we don't have to worry about flooding, but I am tired of rain and DREADING all the mowing and trimming and hand weeding that will need to be done as soon as it's dry enough. I never want to go through another summer like 2012 and 13 when we got almost no rain for 3 months each summer. But last year was very nice. Just the right amount of rain at just the right times, for us anyway.

I am also dreading the mowing, trimming, and weeding. I had to abandon weeding in the old cactus bed yesterday when I sunk to my ankles, even after throwing in a couple of bricks to stand on. If I don't get it finished today or tomorrow, the weeds will be back with a vengeance.

Amy, Unfortunately it is about to start feeling like July. The good thing about the rain is it has kept us cooler. There's no rain in my 7-day forecast, so I expect we'll dry out a lot over the next week, and we're expected to hit the upper 90s early next week. Can 100 degrees be far behind?

Bon, Yay for the rain. You did need it and I'm glad you got it. You may feel stormed out, but it will be a fleeting feeling. We are about to feel the wrath of July heat + high humidity from all the moisture in the ground, so I think it is going to feel worse for a while before it feels better.

Carol, Well, Grove was overdue for some heavy rainfall and apparently it finally happened. With all the accidents on the lake over the July 4th weekend, I hope people will be exceptionally carefully out there on the water now that there's all the runoff from all that rainfall.

I have about half of my garden weeded and more or less under control---the upper half that dries out more quickly. I got a lot of that weeding done in the two hours I was out there this morning. I quickly harvested the one row of tomato plants that I hadn't harvested from prior to the storm, and then I weeded, weeded, weeded as the sun climbed higher in the sky and the temperatures began heating up. The fence lines are a mess, though, and I have to go slowly and carefully with them because that's one of the favorite hiding places of the timber rattlers.

I do the same thing with rain gauges. I've noticed that even the radar-indicated rainfall this year has rarely matched what I've recorded in my rain gauge, and neither does our mesonet station's. It's why I try to keep an unbroken rain gauge (and occasionally a slightly-cracked one that manages to record most of the rainfall) out in the yard at all times. I left the one that cracked in the winter and put a new one beside it. There is only about a 0.10" difference between the two, so the broken one is almost recording correctly.

Dorothy, For so long this year, I was worried y'all weren't getting enough rain, but I can see now that you're getting plenty.

Last year was perfect for us in terms of rainfal, beginning in mid-June, and once the rain started, it's hardly stopped at all. Prior to mid-June, the drought was so bad I was about to close the garden gate and walk away, so the rain began falling in the nick of time. It can stop now if it wants. After the drought years of 2011-2013, I am just thrilled to have plenty of rainfall and (so far) not too many grasshoppers.

It has been a struggle all year to keep up with the bare minimum of mowing, trimming and hand-weeding, but we just keep plugging along, doing what we can when we can and not worrying or fretting about what we can't get done. You can only do whatever the conditions, weather and time available allow, so I try not to worry about the rest. Eventually we'll get it all done.

Sandplum, I weeded all I could this morning and was happy with what I got done, but some of those weeds were so big already that I had to dig them out rather than pulling them out. I'll get out there in the cool early morning hours tomorrow and try to work on it for another 2-4 hours. In June and July the harvesting and canning keeps me too busy to focus too much on weeding, and the rain this year has made weeding even harder to accomplish, but the tomato canning is winding down now, so I should get to weed every day for the next week, especially with no rain in the forecast. I think that with a week of weeding every morning, I should catch up on the backlog of weeds waiting to be removed.

Y'all, I don't remember exactly what our all-time record rainfall is, but I believe it is around 59". I need to look it up and see. I am fairly certain we'll break that record this year, as Burneyville is sitting at 54" right now. Never, ever, even after 2007, did I think we'd see that sort of rainfall here.

Dawn

I hear you,guys, mow,mow,mow,weed,weed,weed,trim,trim,trim. It is a never ending cycle. I got a couple hours of mowing in this evening I'll trim everything in the morning that I mowed tonight. I'll try to ge a couple hours in tomorrow.

I am finally feeling better. I had a bad two days. I guess it was a cold or bad sinus not sure just glad it's over. My grandson has strep throat and a strep rash. I had him today and he just itched and itched. He's getting an oatmeal bath tonight and it helped for a while. Everything I put on him to help,with the itching does no good at all. I feel so bad for him, but he just scratches and keeps on playing.

I am not ready for the July heat and humidity but I am ready for dry days. Oh yea!!! Our shop is finished. Well the outside is done we have the electric and plumbing to do but we have a shop again!!!! It looks really nice.

Everybody have a productive weekend.

Awww. the poor little guy! I hope you both get well, soon. Better to be mowing and feeling normal than have the ickies.

stockergal, Oh, the poor little guy. He must be miserable.

That's great that the shop is done. It is amazing they were able to get it built despite the constant downpours. That's one more item you soon can check off the list as y'all make your way back, step by step, to normal life after a very destructive tornado.

I feel like I'm losing the battle with the weeds and with the mowing and trimming. It is so hot now that it is hard to stay outside long enough to do what needs to be done.

For us down here, the dry is supposed to be prolonged---maybe 2 weeks---so we surely ought to be able to finally catch up on all the mowing and such.

Dawn

I thought we were going to have to plow the garden when I came back from Ft worth. But through the weeds i spied watermelons, squash and tomatoes. The pigweed is 4-6 foot and so dense you cant see paths or plants. you cant hoe because there are plants and dripline so we spend large quantities of time pulling weed. if I look at the big picture I cant see straight, so I take one section at a time. I finally got the yard at home mowed, since I killed a rattlesnake I do not like it to get very tall.

I thought about taking a weedeater to the lower part of the garden which is the weediest part, but I do actually have some desirable plants in there, so I imagine I'll weed it carefully by hand. If I see a snake in the garden, all bets are off. So far, it's been mostly non-venoumous snakes in the garden, so I haven't had to get all hyper yet. The venomous ones have been in the compost pile and hugelkultur beds or in the grass.