That's terrific, Moni!

It rained here too--0.05". Anything wet is good. It did drop our temperature a total of 24 degrees for a while, so that was even better than the rain. I wish it had lasted longer.

Dawn

I'm so glad someone is getting some moisture.

I got .01" of wet stuff. It rained for a good thirty seconds.

I am thankful I got a little rain. Otherwise I would still have a half inch of dust in my rain gauge.

I don't curse, and rarely get the urge to curse, but curse words have been in my mind for the last few weeks every time someone gets a good rain around here and it's not me. While hauling water today I had large storms drop good rains to my west and my south. It's been about 130 days now and I've just about had it.

I awoke to wet porch steps this morning so had to run to the rain gauge first thing to see what happened. We got another 0.15", giving us a 2-day total of 0.20". I know it isn't much, but in a drought year like this, I am happy to see anything wet at all. It did turn the dust in the rain gauge into mud, so I washed it out with the water hose, along with a small dead bug that was in there.

Scott, I am seriously concerned about your trees, but have moved beyond being concerned only about their soil moisture level and now am worried a wildfire will get them. After seeing all those wildfires this weekend, I started thinking that if fire comes your way, your trees will be seriously endangered. Tim and Chris were part of a task force that Love County sent to help with the Cleveland County fires and he told me the trees there looked green enough, but then when fire hit them, they went up like a torch. He said he thinks the trees are in even worse condition in central OK than they appear to be. Since your area is even more rain deprived, I fear your trees really are hurting.

I understand the desire to use curse words. You're in the middle of the doughnut hole this year, as Jay and I both have been in many previous droughts where we've seen the 'doughnut' of land all around us get rain while it misses us sitting there in the doughnut hole. It is not a good place to be.

Yesterday we could see rain falling about a half-mile from our house for a long time before it got here. I had an irrational desire to drive up the road and just sit there in the rain, but didn't do it. The folks further north got a lot more rain than we did, but at least we got something.

Some trees here, most notably cottonwoods, catalpas, hackberries and elms are having leaves yellow and drop. Some of the very young pecan trees (let's say less than 7 or 8 years old) are beginning to drop a few leaves. Every day there's more leaves lying under the trees. I finally broke down and watered our native pecans on the north side of the house that sit halfway between the house and the woodland. I was hoping they could survive on rainfall, but they were showing more and more drought stress, so I watered them.

I hope rainfall finds your place soon. I was watching the rainfall on the radar and thought maybe it was falling on your pecan trees and am truly sorry to hear that it was not.

Dawn

Drat! I forgot to look at my rain gauge this morning - but I do know that I had measurable rain...have to see what it was (after a bit of evaporation)when I get home this evening...probably just a 1/4 inch or so, but I'll take it!

Lisa's in The Village also...Lisa - what did you get?

Sharon

.7 inches at May & Hefner for me. We moved just barely out of the Village but hopefully you got as much as I did, Sharon!

We are getting a little rain now about 15 miles south of Ft. Smith. This is the first rain we have received this month and very happy to get every drop of it.

Larry

Dh called from Springdale about noon to say it was raining hard. I had to tell him nothing here, but about 2p.m. it opened up and poured for a whole 2/10th of an inch. We got a total of 2/10th in July; I hope that's not the total for August. Got 5 whole inches in June, most of it the first week. So we're not as bad off as some of you are.

Sure hope your pecan trees get rain, Scott. We have a native pecan that is bearing for the first time this year, and we have been watering it, hoping the nuts will fill out.

We got 1.7" of rain this afternoon, 8.7" total since the first of July. This just blows my mind, we were dry April, May and June. We are getting rain after many things have burned up. I wish I could share some of this with y'all, not that I have too much, but because I know that some of you are really hurting for rain.

Larry

It drizzled for a while this morning, upping our two-day (and month-to-date) total to 0.4".

Dorothy, Last year in July we had 0.0" of rain. That may have been the first time we ever have had a month that had no rain whatsoever.

Larry, I am glad y'all are getting so much rain and hope it helps your soil produce well for fall. It is too bad that the rain came after many of your plants had burned up.

Dawn

Well...after today's evaporation I still had almost 1/2 inch in my rain gauge - that's very encouraging, considering the wind was blowing like crazy, so not all of the little drops made it down in there, lol!!

I'm having a celebratory mowing of my grass and stubble tomorrow evening :~)

Sharon

Well, it sounds like some of you got a WHOLE lot less than I, but some of you got more.

I am dreaming of a three day slow rain.

Yes, a girl can dream. :)

Moni

%@!

Blanked again.

141 days... and counting.

I assumed it would never rain again and didn't empty out my rain gauge from sprinkler water. Oops. So, I don't have a positive number for the rain, but I thought it was about 1/2 an inch. However my church is less than 1/2 a mile down the road and it sure did not look like they got that much rain.

Lisa, it seems that most rains are like that this time of year. The past two months I have received more than most in the area, last year was not that way, it seemed that I was last on the list.

Scott, as shallow as my soil is I would not have anything left after going 141 days without rain. I can go from too wet to too dry in 2 weeks or less without rain. I sure hope you get a lot of rain soon.

Larry

Scott,

That's simply incredible.

I hope you get rain soon, and lots of it. You need a Love County-style drought-breaker like the almost 13" of rain we had here on April 29, 2009. A little sprinkle or two won't help enough.

We have had some really dry periods here, and yet I don't think my plants have ever gone more than maybe 60-something days without rain. I cannot imagine what it is like there, but I'm guessing there is not much green left.

Dawn

To be honest, we have had 4 rains during that time that were true rains. We had one rain in April that was 0.8 over two days, and one in May that was 0.5, then one in June that was 0.8 and then one that was 0.5 the first week of July. So we have had a few rains since March 20, just nothing near an inch or more that would get any water to the tree roots. I think if you totalled all the rain including the little ones, we have had about 5 inches over those 4 months.

I just think in terms of what rain is doing with my trees, which is a rain the at least gets close to an inch over a period of a couple of days, and we have not had that since the big 3 inch one we got March 19-20.

We have now hauled 100,000 gallons of water in the last 9 days. I'm giving it everything I have. I think it's only about 8 more days until help arrives in the form of heavy rain. It's looking promising for the first time in a long time.

Scott, Those rainfall amounts are pathetic (not that I am telling you something you don't already know) and would barely wet the surface of the ground. When our rainfall is that low, even if I can see visible moisture in the rain gauge, often the ground doesn't even look like the rain reached it. Five inches over 4 months is still pathetically small compared to what the trees need.

Doesn't March seem like it was about 100 years ago? I loved March. We had too much rain and I had to work around the rain in order to plant. I may not have liked it at the time, but that March rainfall, and some that fell in April is what got my veggies off to a good start. Without that, the garden would have been just as pathetic this year as it was last year.

That's a tremendous amount of water to haul. I know that I cannot comprehend how much time you have spent getting water to those trees.

I am very glad to hear that relief may be as close as 8 days away. That offers a lot of hope for your trees. Now, you be sure to wash all the cars, etc. right before the rain is forecasted to fall. That's how we get it to rain here. We wash the cars and clean the exterior of all the house's windows. If that doesn't make it rain, nothing will. Of course, since you need rain out at the farm for the trees, you would need to park a clean, shiny vehicle there too.

There's one more thing that makes it rain hard here---just go to the fire station and wash, scrub, clean, shine and polish up the fire trucks and decorate them for a local parade. If you do that, you're guaranteed rain and a fire call that takes you out into the rain sometime between the time the trucks are clean and decorated, and the time the parade starts. It happens every time. The problem in our area is that the parades are in early June early autumn for the school's homecoming parade, and early December, so there's nothing in the middle of the summer to make it rain.

Keep us posted on the rainfall when it comes!

Dawn

I was looking at last August (when I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime dry summer) and the August rain totalled close to 3 inches during the 3 days that it rained around Aug 10. That's what we need next week.

The pecans are small, but still on the trees. The trees are still healthy in the bottoms, but starting to fade in elevated areas. All trees 15 years or younger are looking bad. Only a small percentage will die as long as we get a good rain this week. I have drained almost every water source on the place. Only one pond still has any water in it.

Earlier today while watering some plants, I watered the rain gauge. For several minutes. Then I ran inside and checked how much "rain" had fallen (yeah, one of those battery-operated things) and pretended it was real.

THAT is funny!

Scott, I think our weather break last year was August 11th and 13th, with temps below 100 for the first time since June, and with rain on two different days. It totaled less than about 1.25 inches, but it was wonderful to get it. Last year in June and July we had a grand total of 0.00" of rain. We're in better shape, moisture-wise this year, but the heat still is dreadful, and with it being the second drought year in a row, the trees don't seem like they have as much reserve energy to draw upon.

Okievegan, lol lol lol Too bad you had to return to the real world of little to no rain. One day I had water in the rain gauge and got all excited, but then remembered I'd had the sprinkler on there for the four trees on the south side of the house and for the chickens, who like to play in the sprinkler on very hot days. I normally water the trees with a soaker hose, but the chickens don't like to splash in the water from it since there's so little dispersed from the hose at one time. They do like to play in the water from the sprinkler, so any day we are going over about 105 degrees, I periodically turn on the sprinkler for the chickens, and all the wild birds come play in the mist as well.

Dawn

Scott, I think our weather break last year was August 11th and 13th, with temps below 100 for the first time since June, and with rain on two different days. It totaled less than about 1.25 inches, but it was wonderful to get it. Last year in June and July we had a grand total of 0.00" of rain. We're in better shape, moisture-wise this year, but the heat still is dreadful, and with it being the second drought year in a row, the trees don't seem like they have as much reserve energy to draw upon.

Okievegan, lol lol lol Too bad you had to return to the real world of little to no rain. One day I had water in the rain gauge and got all excited, but then remembered I'd had the sprinkler on there for the four trees on the south side of the house and for the chickens, who like to play in the sprinkler on very hot days. I normally water the trees with a soaker hose, but the chickens don't like to splash in the water from it since there's so little dispersed from the hose at one time. They do like to play in the water from the sprinkler, so any day we are going over about 105 degrees, I periodically turn on the sprinkler for the chickens, and all the wild birds come play in the mist as well.

Dawn