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Texas Gardening

glub, glub, glub . . . gulp!

freshair2townsquare

15 years ago

we've had light rain since at least 2am & it is glorious - i have to tell y'all since my family think i'm crazy, but i'm so excited about going outside to weed in the low temps with soft, wet soil

~ freshair

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Comments (20)

carrie751
15 years ago
I understand fully, freshair...... this is absolutely wonderful. The soft rain that can soak in and do so much good is exciting. I share your enthusiasm!!!!!
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chickadee_42us
15 years ago
Hush - not narry a drop hear and it's hot hot hot.
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This property dictates a multi-level house whose orientation and footprint is long and narrow, to parallel the contours and minimize the grade differential, front to back. Indeed, the architect's sketch calls out living spaces only at grade and doesn't deal with sleeping spaces which one assumes are either above or below the living level (the close spacing of the contours makes enlarging the plan at grade extremely difficult and challenging, as in very expensive). This sort of house may not sound like much of an issue, but take a look at most plans posted on this Forum for comment, and most stock plans in the plan factories. The vast majority of these houses are designed for perfectly flat, limitless sites, and the houses are at least 2-3 large rooms deep and often close to as deep as they are wide. In other words, most of these bulky house plans are the extreme opposite of the architect's sketch of a narrow, long house. Stock plans which are large and bulky simply won't work with this particular site. Further, as shown in the architect's sketch, the lower level is spproximately 12' below the living level. That's a full floor height with an 11' ceiling (for what equates to a basement)! It also means any habitable space on the lower level will only have major windows on the south facing elevation. This is a site that really calls for a special, site-responsive custom designed building. It may be of any architectural character you may desire, but it's going to be a long and narrow footprint as in the architect's sketch, regardless of the architectural character. If you want a large consumer-styled 3,500-5,000 SF house with very large spaces as typically found in the stock plan factories or want more occuped areas than the architect's sketch shows on the grade level, this will be a very challenging and expensive site. In such a case, this may not be the right site. The other critical issue for building on sloping terrain is the soil characteristics. If the soils are highly rocky, then excavation will be an issue. If the soils are highly expansive, then proper soils testing and foundation design are essential. Not going to be an inexpensive site to develop. Running utilities to the site will be challenging and expensive if they have to come up from the road at +40'. The cut for the access road, for example, may have to be stabilized and the road itself may need special treatment to prevent erosion during heavy or continuous rains. Have you considered all of this? Good luck with your project!
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User
15 years ago
No rain here either and no cool front either. Enjoy it freshair!
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freshair2townsquare
Original Author
15 years ago
you bet i did! never had so much fun weeding!

we even ate on the patio for the first time since forever

~ freshair
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beachplant
15 years ago
I am turning green, with envy as there ain't no rain here. Though is is "cool", only 92 today!
Tally HO!
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carrie751
15 years ago
I think my total amount was only a half inch, but it was so slow and soft, and everything is green again. I know it won't last long, but any rain in July is a blessing !!!
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freshair2townsquare
Original Author
15 years ago
aaaaaah - what a tall drink of water we had overnight
~ freshair
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vwtx
15 years ago
WooHoo! We got a little over 2 inches here. Maybe the house will shift back to normal :)
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beachplant
15 years ago
Still no rain but that's OK for now, still no windows!
Tally HO!
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lou_spicewood_tx
15 years ago
Looks like I missed out the heavy rain part. :(

Looks like maybe half inch if at all. That buys me about 3 extra days before having to water...
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User
15 years ago
We only got 1/4" at most.
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roselee z8b S.W. Texas
15 years ago
I must be dreaming. It seems I woke up this morning to wet grass and one inch showing in the rain gauge. Please tell me it really happened :-)
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rock_oak_deer
15 years ago
You're not dreaming, my yard is wet too! What a nice surprise, I didn't want to believe it even when I saw some lightning last night.
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linda_tx8
15 years ago
My life...HOT/DRY yesterday, a little light show last night just to remind us what we can't have. Today will be HOT/DRY also, the next day, ditto, the next day, ditto. What a curious word, exceptional, to describe the drought from Hades...surely it could be described another way! Oh, that's right...another word could be used, but that word can't be posted on this forum.
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wantonamara Z8 CenTex
15 years ago
My sentiments exactly about the usage of "Exceptional" to describe something horrendous. ....Like how about "catastrophic" or should we have a "BIBLICAL" drought or would that be a tad tempting to the powers that be to give us more. Maybe we should just have a good ol' texas wordism to describe our drought. Any suggestions?

I was looking on my town's site statistics on the internet and they said we had a 34" average rainfall. I think I have only seen that one year in all the years I lived here. I am tilting the scales at 10" for the last 12 months.....Bad
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knittlin
15 years ago
How about a few words, Wantonamara ~ drier than a popcorn fart. I'm so, so sick of this. Mark Rose was on The Boss' radio show the other day (John Dromgoole's) saying we should see a change in the weather pattern in a couple weeks. Man, I hope he's right.

Another hope is that El Nino really is going to grow and not peter out. Last I heard (months ago), there was a one or two degree rise in temp out there in the Pacific. It takes a lot more than that to give us any rain from it (I think four or five degrees?). I haven't heard if it's risen more, but would think so judging from all the typhoons they've got brewing out there. Anyone heard?
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linda_tx8
15 years ago
I don't know, but it really doesn't matter. I looked up the statistics on when El Nino affects our rainfall pattern in Texas. The very earliest month it could cause any rainfall in Texas is October. So we could have rain in the meantime, but it wouldn't be associated with El Nino. And the site I found said there is NO guarantee of El Nino effect in any certain part of the world. But it usually causes an increase in rain in Texas during certain months of the year.
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lou_spicewood_tx
15 years ago
El Nino during mid-late fall through winter (maybe spring) is usually noticeable. Rest of the year, probably doesn't matter. May reduce numbers of tropical storms meaning less rain but summers are largely unpredictable anyway. It's either feast or famine every year.

Last thing we want is La Nina during the winters... It was getting to be too dry for me last winter up here in Dallas area. I actually had to water during the winter!
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linda_tx8
15 years ago
How about Hellacious Inferno to describe both our southcentral drought and the extreme heat combined? That sounds about right. One good effect is the lack of insects like mosquitos and chiggers here. With the heat and no rain at all, they cannot live. The grasshoppers are pretty much gone also. Very few insects left. I'm always put out water for wildlife in summer. Now I'm feeding the few remaining local birds and any early migrating birds. I'm also putting out corn for the deer. Something must have gotten here too late to get it the other night. It dug up 3 or 4 Twistleaf Yuccas along the back driveway, left the leaves lying around and must have eaten the rest of those plants. Hungry! But it's the sad sight of dead and dying native trees and shrubs all over this area that really breaks my heart! I keep thinking...if it would only rain, some could be saved!
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lou_spicewood_tx
15 years ago
Linda,

Sounded like 2005-2006 in Dallas area! That was brutal...
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