Downpour

We have had an unusually hot Spring here in North Carolina, and it has also been very dry. Most people fear another drought this year, and rightly so since we seem to be headed in that direction. I have been watering all the plants every day for the past two weeks trying to keep them from shriveling up and dying, but the lawn is already brown and dead. We're not even going to try to repair the lawn this early in the season since the real heat of Summer hasn't even hit us yet. It seems like a futile endeavor when the baking sun of July is just around the corner to undo all the work we will put into lawn care in June.

We have been teased with hopes of rain for the past two weeks. Each day we were given between a 30-60% chance of rain, and each day around 2pm the thunder would roar in the distance, but no rain would come. Tuesday was no different. The thunder roared, but the sky was clear. The rain was falling on some other lucky lawn off in the distance. I finally gave in and watered the plants around 2:30pm. You can imagine my surprise when, at 3pm, the sky grew suddenly dark and the clouds let loose with the most torrential downpour of rain I have seen in this area in 3 years. It poured for 2 1/2 hours, then continued to rain more gently for another 2 hours. Although the heavy rains tore up my fresh mulch and flooded some of the garden beds, I'm not complaining. I only hope the skies are this generous in the future. That downpour has saved me the trouble of having to water the plants for the past two days. Let's keep our branches crossed that we get some more.