Rain and More Rain

Surprise! Surprise! I was able to sneak online. With any luck, I'll even be able to get a blog post made.

Thunderstorms moved into our area Monday evening. Abundant lightning forced us to shut down and unplug the computer. By midnight two or three squall lines had passed through and all was quiet. However, the rain drowned out our telephone again. The telephone outages are effecting several of our neighbors too. Obviously, there's a problem with something getting wet that should stay dry, and it isn't being permanently repaired. (Grumble, grumble at the telephone company.) The phone started working again mid-morning.

Overnight we received a total of 1.8" or rain. Jo was able to take the dogs on their regular morning walk during a lull between storms. Mid-morning brought another thundershower. There wasn't much lightning or strong winds, but it really rained. We picked up another 2.25" before noon. These photos were taken during that downpour.

The photo above shows the little winter creek at the back of our yard.

Where the creek comes under the fence is normally about a foot wide.

The front yard normally doesn't have a creek running through it. I hope it doesn't wash away my firewood.

After another lull it is raining heavily again. I hear thunder moving in too and need to get off the computer. With any luck I'll get this posted.

Rain and More Rain

Bluet

Less than a week after our last snow (I hope it was, indeed, our last snowfall of the winter), wildflowers are beginning to appear. On Thursday I noticed a few dozen of these tiny bluets (Houstonia pusilla, I think) scattered around the pasture. By Friday, there were several hundred scattered in various places, and many were beginning to emerge in small clusters which is typical for the species. A single small bluet -- a purple-blue flower 1/4-1/3 inch across -- is easy to miss, but a cluster adds a splash of color to the glades, rocky ledges, outcroppings and dry open places where they typically grow. Bluets are native annuals that seem to do a very good job of reseeding themselves.

Another sign of spring that we've been experiencing is thunderstorms. Storms on Thursday evening knocked out our ISP for about 18 hours. More storms Friday night took out our telephone service while I was in the process of making a blog post. Doing anything online has been a challenge the past few days.

Bluet

Saturday, 6/30/07

Mushrooms: Wet summer weather has produced an abundance of mushrooms. This one was shining so brightly that from a distance I thought it must surely be some sort of plastic litter along the roadside.

No Phoebes: We're not going to have a second brood of phoebes from the nest on the porch. A black snake feasted on the chicks overnight. I would have intervened in the couse of nature had I noticed the snake soon enough, but by the time I saw it in the nest, the chicks had already been consumed. This isn't the first time a black snake has raided a nest on the porch. Those snakes must have an amazing sense of smell for it to have even known the nest was there.

Limited Work Outside: I got in a little -- very little -- work outside today. About the time we normally transition to working outside, a thundershower was threatening. There was thunder relatively nearby for about an hour before we finally got any rain. I'd decided to tempt fate and and was weeding in the garden when the rain finally began falling. We had a modest little thundershower that only dropped .7" of rain, but took out our telephone service.

Saturday, 6/30/07

Thundershower in St. Louis

Photo by Jo March 31, 2007

We did an art show in St. Louis the last weekend in March. Rain threatened all day Saturday but waited until we were on the way back to the motel after the show closed before letting loose with a heavy thundershower. (Fortunately, this was an indoor show so we didn't have to worry about our booths getting blown away.) After the storm dumped it's heavy rain, the skies began clearing again before sunset.

Thundershower in St. Louis