Jay,

Yay!!!! It is about time some of this rain found you.

I was watching the radar up your way and hoping actual raindrops were falling. Remember how in some other years we thought, from radar images, you'd had rain but nothing had fallen? So, I'm so thrilled that actual raindrops fell from the sky and you finally got a nice, heavy rainfall.

I hate to hear that about the hoppers. They drove me nuts last year, stripping the garden down to bare stems and I finally gave in and sprayed almost my entire garden (veggies but not the herbs and flowers) with a broad-spectrum chemical pesticide (Bifenthren) for the first time ever. It did temporarily rid the garden of grasshoppers and it saved the tomato plants and pepper plants that still had a few leaves, but I hated doing it and don't know if I'd do it again. So far, we have very few grasshoppers this year, but we'll see what happens when and if the now-green fields begin turning brown. That's always the point where the grasshoppers flock to the garden in numbers too big to control with any organic treatment.

We are on track to set a new all-time record for annual rainfall, and I totally understand what you're saying about having a true appreciation for rainfall after so many years without. Last year we were in extreme drought and teetering on the edge of slipping into exceptional drought when rain finally started falling, and it was disheartening every single day of the year, from January through mid-June, until the rain finally started falling. Really, except for a brief dry spell at the end of August and early September last year, the rain hasn't stopped falling since then. Of course we have had far too much rainfall this year, and I feel bad for the folks whose homes either flooded out or totally washed away, but I have loved having more rain than we need for once. Everyone's getting awesome hay harvests, when and if they can finally make it into the fields to cut, rake and bail it, and the cows and horses in the fields seem remarkably content.

Let's hope you keeping getting rain for a while....until you start complaining it is too much. I'm not sure if it is possible for too much to fall there where you live.

Dawn

Oh gosh, jay. I'm thinking simple, but I bet those hoppers were gathering in all the dry places in Oklahoma and that includes your place. I'm happy you've gotten rain. Most of us are like "where do I live, again?" because it's so odd.

I even have a lush green lawn. Who has one of those in Oklahoma without a sprinkler system? And we have not record fall or even up to par, just wet. It's finally all just "wet".

We are on a roll now. Another 1.30 this evening and another round is moving through now. We were 6.4 this time last week for the year and now are 12.70 which includes a tenth last evening. What a change. The hoppers are still bad. They have ate all the leaves off my lilac bushes and alot of the bark. The Bayer spray helps. It has reduced numbers in the areas I have used it. Hesitate to use it in the garden. I put out Bran last evening as they were saying our chances of moisture were slim. And now it is wasted. Will try to spray again tomorrow if it isn't raining but hope it is. They are saying real good chances again early next week. Doing the happy dance here on the OK/KS border

We are stuck in the oven here in SW OKC . Not sure when we will cool off and get wet again. Glad you got some much needed rain.

Emptied another .3 when it was over. The frogs are sure happy now. Sure the skeeters will be arriving soon.

I misfigured the total. The total for the year is actually 13.9.

I'm glad you got more rain. Every little big helps and your rainfall total is looking great. I bet it is nice to have so much rain up there this year. I just wish it had come earlier in the season for you. That grasshopper battle is hard to win once they're migrating in hordes from the fields. I'm starting to see some surprisingly large numbers of them in the pastures, especially the ones that haven't been mowed or hayed this year, but they still aren't in the veggie garden in huge numbers. If we stay as hot and dry as we have been for the last week, the plants in the pastures will start drying out and turning brown pretty quickly and then the hoppers will invade anything still green, like lawns and gardens. I'm hoping for some rain in August to keep them from happening. Our long-term forecast for the rest of July doesn't offer much hope to us down here in terms of rainfall. I looked at the QPF 7-day forecast yesterday and it showed us getting 0.01" over the next 7 days, so I guess I'll water the garden either today or tomorrow That will be the first time this year I've watered the whole garden. The only other times I watered, I was just watering in new transplants or watering containers.