Our house midway between Manchester VT and Rutland VT has been missed up until now too. Very good timing for this rain, though since I just put my started plants out yesterday. Our brook and our spring are very low so I'm hoping it will rain enough to replenish them.

I'm northern MA near NH and I haven't had any rain in quite awhile either. Unfortunately the rain is now over and looks like just about 1/4" if that. Just enough to water in the lawn fertilizer I put down last night.

I guess there's more expected during the week. Let's hope. The spider mites have been having a field day with the dry conditions.

I only hit a little on the way in to work this morning along 28 in Barnstead...not sure if it ever made its way over the mountain to my house, but it's been dry the rest of the day so far. Guess I'll be turning on the hose after all...I was holding off (and holding off and holding off...just hoping that that "30% chance" that the Weather Channel was touting might hit my yard. It hasn't.)

We were below normal for precipitation December through March; but since April we've had good consistent rains. Got about 1.25" last week & picked up a good 1" today plus a good chance for more this afternoon. We've not hooked up the hoses yet this season. Between the rain & cool weather even my pots are doing great on their own.

I'm enjoying my gardens so much this year. After my lupus diagnosis in Jan. '08, I caved & hired a full-service, real gardener. He mows, weeds, prunes, fertilizes, mulches, rakes, transplants...anything that needs doing if I'm having a bad pain week. I feel blessed to have found him. It's allowing me to enjoy the garden again instead of feeling depressed because I can no longer maintain everything on my own & DH is only here 1-1/2 days/week. What I'm appreciating the most is that I don't have to tell him what to do...he's a gardener so he just intuitively knows. Example: last week I purchased 7 geranium macrorrhizum 'Variegata' (is that right?). Anyway, I put them under the 'Snow Fountain' cherry & went in to lay down cause my legs hurt so bad I couldn't walk any more. Steve came while I was sleeping. When I went outside my geraniums were planted & mulched. He reads my mind. I swear he does. He planted those geraniums so that they will fill in to make about a 3' edge to the border & then sweep in towards the center of the bed in a drift...just what I had wanted. I thought about him as I was typing about the rain 'cause normally he comes on Tuesdays...he'll be here tomorrow when it's a bit drier. Between Steve & Chandra (the housekeeper I hired at the same time), & PeaPod delivering my groceries I'm getting my life back on track. It's hard to accept that limitations exist & you just have to adapt. I've always sworn I'd never have anybody else clean my house...well, now I do & I'm very grateful & appreciative of her hard work.

Hope everybody needing rain gets their fair share.

/tricia

I hear ya! I was so happy to see it rain today! The weather reports have been driving me crazy lately. I'd hear "chance of showers" so I'd hold off on watering all my container plants on the deck and all my new seedlings in the garden beds. Then we wouldn't get any rain at all.

And I've really needed Mother Nature's help this year with keeping the garden beds hydrated. I've got a 7 week old baby girl to tend to now so this year my gardens have NOT been very high up on the priority list!

So incredibly happy to see it RAIN!

Gee, we've had so much rain here I'm sick of it! And this morning was an absolute downpour. Traffic was moving about 20 miles an hour the rain was coming down so hard.

More rain tomorrow too. And I think on Thursday. Should clear up just in time for me to work (at my job, not in the garden, lol!) on Saturday.

:)
Dee

Send that rain up north Dee! lol I'm sure you would if you could.

Tricia I sure envy you your wonderful gardener!

The rain didn't amount to too much here either. We had one day where I didn't have to water anything, but today I'm back to hauling watering cans (our lawn is several acres and foolish me, I planted a number of flower beds and small trees out of reach of the garden hose.)