I almost cried when I woke up this morning and heard it raining again. Uncle is right. I can hardly wait to see what food prices are going to be this coming year, never mind my own gardening (I don't have big hopes).

I agree - crazy that rain can make me feel down, when normally it's a blessed commodity here in Colorado! I want to get my seedlings out in the garden this weekend, since it's three days and I'll have more time, as well as it's normally the time to do it end of frost wise. So I've been trying to harden them off, and plan on gradually getting them up to 7 hrs day time exposure by Monday. But looks like I won't be getting them used to the sun, just outdoor temps - and those lower then normal!!

Should I wait, or give them the boot Monday?! If I go ahead and plant them, guess I'll just have to be diligent about protecting them a bit once the sun finally comes out for a stay (it will, won't it?!!) so they don't get fried.

Marj

I dodged a doozy of a thunderstorm yesterday evening about 10 pm - for over an hour, to the SW the sky was white with lightening, the thunder just a continuous boom. Thunderstorms at night are pretty rare around here.

So, I just got home to Seattle—uhhhh—I mean, DENVER, last
evening, and I was gonna come here to ask who decided to renew winter! Yikes!
Where is this place I came home to???
It’s almost JUNE! Or—what month
is this?

I was watching radar down here while I was gone and as near
as I could tell it stayed like this the whole time! I have almost an inch and a half more of rain
in my rain gauge today, and that along with the 1.4 and 2.4 inches I got in the
last several days before I left makes a total of a little over FOUR INCHES, in
roughly three weeks! If there were any dry days while I was gone some of
the water in the rain gauge could have evaporated and it might have been even
more!

It was cold and rainy almost the whole time I was out in the
hills too—Cortez/Durango areas. Glad you
missed the thunder/lightening/maybe hail yesterday, David, but sure hope the
precip has been helping to get you guys out of the drought condition down
there!

The second place I stayed only had Albuquerque news on the non-cable TV, and
they’ve been getting dumped on all over New Mexico too! Temps in the 60s, when they should be in the
80s!

I drove home about halfway in rain yesterday—but at least it
didn’t start snowing along my route till after
I got home! When I left a week and a
half ago I was in snow all the way over Wolf Creek Pass—wound up driving the
whole way down the west side in second gear!
There was so much snow you couldn’t see any of the lines at all, and
there was a snowplow going the OTHER direction!

I wonder if it’s dry and sunny up in the Pacific
Northwest!!!

With all the rain here at my house I was expecting the grass
to be a foot high when I got back home, but it’s not too bad at all. I guess the lack of sun has slowed it
down! But I did get some things smashed
down in the snow that happened the nite I left town! One of my Iris, blooming, is laying down flat
on the grass! Kind of a shame—it would
be really pretty otherwise! Another
Iris, not flattened, and in full bloom, has flowers that look all
waterlogged—poor thing! My Chinese lily
that was already about 4’ tall got nipped by the frost, and is pretty bent over
from the snow too, and another batch of lilies apparently got bent all the way
over from the snow and then only stood halfway back up—and then started to “grow
UP” again, so now they have a 45 degree “bend” in them! That’ll make for some interesting plants this
summer! A few other things got a little
bit smashed down too, but there’s actually considerably less damage than I was
expecting! And everything sure is well watered! But there’s still at least a “chance” of rain
every day for the next full week—according to NOAA—so, along with everybody
else, UNCLE! Mother Nature, not to
complain or anything, but, please spread it out a little bit and give us some
in the middle of summer when we really need it!

Skybird

P.S. All you Colorado
folks aren’t gonna believe this, but
in New Mexico people GET PAID for putting in a rain barrel to collect rainwater
to use for their gardening! Hint, hint,
hint, Colorado! You don’t need to PAY
us, but just let us DO IT!!!

Glad you got back from your latest journey safe and sound, skybird! It has been a memorable May (trying to be somewhat positive). Dang, we got a bit of blue sky (I almost peed myself in excitement at the sight) then t-storms moved in on us and deposited some tiny white pellets. Oh, I'm so weary of this jet stream event!

ROFL! I have a funny feeling, Jali, that the sun is bound to come out "for real" sooner or later! Perhaps you should stock up on Pampers!

Speaking of White Pellets, I saw some of those on my trip too! They became "noticeable" (and somewhat painful!) just as I was starting up the 30' ladder into the Anasazi ruin we were heading for! If you're interested, click on the link!

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/qM7I6UvEmaJGhk7rq90nbA-adUOsZaRO2gAeQMzPnSQ?feat=directlink

I know all about white pellets!

Skybird

Skybird, they JUST passed the law that allows homeowners to have rainbarrels! I have no barrel yet, but I've got every bucket, tub and bin that I can drag sitting under an eave or leaking gutter and downspout. I actually felt the SUN today while the guys were out here turning on the sprinkler system (we had damage to repair but turned the timer off for now)... and then it rained again before they left! Just a little while ago, it was POURING again... it's a blessing when we remember the fires from this time of year in recent years past, but I keep waiting for a phone call from Noah!

I had no idea that there were laws against rain barrels!! I haven't been collecting any, but now that you mention it, that is a wonderful idea. But guess I'd better check to be sure Westminster allows it!

Yesterday after I brought all my seedlings back in from their 3 hr hardening off period, I noticed some sun peaking through the clouds. I dashed them all back out again to capture some of that sun filtering through our honey locust for about another hour! 'course, it came and went during that time, but I figured a little is better than nothing!!

Marj

UNCLE isn’t working!!!
Have any other ideas, Jali???

I got more rain overnite, and my rain gauge that had 1.5” in
it yesterday was up to 1.6” this morning.
NOW I just had a real DUMPING—for about 20 minutes it POURED, and now
I’m up to 2.1” in the rain gauge! A half
an inch in about 20 minutes! Before it
started again I got the iris that was laying on the grass more or less tied
back up into an upright position and got a couple other things tied up and one
that was not going to recover at all cut back down to the ground so it can
start to regrow! Even if it stopped
raining RIGHT NOW, I don’t think the soil in my yard could possibly be worked
for at least a week—and probably
longer than that! Are we gong to have a
“summer” this year? WOW! Since I got here in ’64 I don’t remember EVER
having continuous rain for this long a period of time! This is absolutely incredible!

Mayberry, where did you hear that rainbarrel info? I googled it and from what I found there was
a law proposed that they “hoped” would go thru—but it didn’t. See the link below. If you know something else about this that
really does make it legal for us to capture rain water, can you link some info
about it?

http://www.waterinfo.org/taxonomy/term/718

This seems to be the proposed bill that failed.

http://www.leg.state.co.us/CLICS/CLICS2015A/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/DA79A86140AF7F2787257DDD0067A5DD?Open&file=1259_01.pdf

Skybird

P.S. And, Zach, you
mentioned Chatfield being built to prevent another “Flood of ’65,” but I’m sure
you’ve seen the recent pics of Chatfield right now! Once again there’s nowhere left “for it to
go!” If we get a real dumping in the
wrong place right now, it sure looks to me like we’re back in a “1965
Situation!” Mother Nature seems to have
some interesting ideas this
year! Guess it’s good to be reminded
every now and then that we’re not the ones running the show!

Skybird, pictures? Shoot i drive past it every morning and our storage shed in at their park.

I work with the Chatfield guys quite a bit, one of them is kind of "in charge" of our well and pump house since we don't have anyone with a water liscence at Roxborough.

Anyways, don't fret, that dam can hold a lot more water than you might think, the water guy was at our park the other day and giving us all the "specs" on it. Can't recall any numbers, but I do know it's not anywhere near capacity. Sure, the boat ramp and swim beach are closed (the bathrooms are currently submerged lol) but the dam and the reservoir are just fine!

An interesting aside, there are plans in place to expand the capacity of the reservoir so we can give Nebraska more water.

Now our park? That's a different story indeed! All of our trails are either washed out or have been turned into swampland. There's only two of us on the trail crew and 18 miles of trail to fix, most of which can't be touched until my ground is no longer soup and that doesn't look like it's gonna happen any time soon. The worst one, Fountain Valley, has entire sections that need to be completely excavated and rebuilt because the ruts are so deep. All of this has to be done BY HAND!

I was given a deadline of mid-late June to get over two miles of trail completely rebuilt from scratch. Keep in mind when I was on a road crew with heavy machinery it took us over a month running 24 hours/7 days a week to do that much.

"I wonder if it’s dry and sunny up in the Pacific
Northwest!!!"

Why, yes. Yes it is. I believe the governor of WA has declared drought conditions of some level throughout most of the state now.

It's actually a little rainy today, but just some clouds and sprinkles. I've been doing some painting outdoors this week. We've been able to have salads from the garden this week, and we're eating tons of the Egyptian Walking onions I got at the swap there. I don't know how those do anywhere else (since I only had them a year or two in CO, but I took some with me), but they like it here. I had so many bulbils last fall I gave them to everybody that would take them and we're just going to eat our way through them this spring, lol. I've been able to pick just a handful of strawberries from the bed I planted last summer, and they are amazing.

It's not unusual for May to be nice though. June might be another story. They call it "June Gloom" for a reason. July will come, and it will be dry and sunny until fall, so it all works out.

My time in Colorado is still with me in some other ways too. On the rare occasions we have a storm that tries to spit out some hail, I find myself running to the garden to cover what I can (which isn't much since I have no set-up for it like I did there) and so far, every time it has happened, it's just tiny hail and it stops before I get back indoors. Last time it happened, I managed to keep myself in the house, and it was all just fine, lol.

Nice to see you poking your head in around here every now and then, Greenbean!

If you really miss hail, we could package some up and send it to you!!!

:-D
Skybird

Nope, thanks anyway, lol

I don't have much hail, but I do have more than a lot of slugs to deal with, so maybe it balances out. :-)

Uhh! I'll take the hail! At least that only happens "every once in a while." Slugs are ALWAYS AND FOREVER!

Gorgeous, Marj!

I used to enjoy going out to the rain gauge. Not lately. As long as we don't get the evil "h" word, I'll just cope. There was a stunning sunrise yesterday, but more light grey today. My lawn is an absolute jungle, but I can't get out there to mow it yet. What is monsoon season going to be like?

Keep the sunshiney thoughts going RMGers!

uncle!

Uncle!

UNCLE!

UNCLE!!!

Is there an UN rain dance?! Wind and rained so hard tonight my T post tomato supports are no longer upright. I have to find a way to make them stay up in this super soft soil... Maybe a PVC spreader on the top?

I'm reading an interesting book on grassland conservation... Apparently a series of frequent el nino events shortly after the Civil War fooled easterners into thinking that this was normal rain amounts which triggered a boom of settlement on the previously uninhabitable and "sterile" western prairie.

I taken to rigging some posts topped with an empty planter to protect the lily buds. By golly, if that plant could survive a hard freeze, I'll do my darnedest to protect its precious buds from freezing marbles! I won't say it, or it will return, but the "w" word stuff has been pretty mild this year, as well. I kind of hope it returns in a mild form if it is going to stay so wet so the plants can get some air circulation.

All I know is that the weather is off of it's bipolar meds. Sunny and hot, rainy and electrical boomstorm, then sunny and hot again. I wonder Zach, if our predecessors that settled right here in this area were some of those fooled by the weather!?!? Madness, I tell you!

Has it been 40 days and 40 nights yet?! Sure feels like it!!! It's raining again in Westminster :(

We're getting intermittent waves of storms and the timing is a bit ironic. This is the 25th anniversary of our tornado. At 8:08 pm, to be precise. Not worried about any big winds, but more fear of the "h" word. Raspberries, Ma Nature. Raspberries!

Were getting the same thing Jali, and whether they actually open up or not is hit or miss today. Had two massive thunder storms look like they were headed right for us and then veer off and sunny skies return.

I don't know Mayberry, but I'm sure cussing at them for unhitching the wagons in Denver this year... Why couldn't they have gone on to California with everyone else lol.

I bought grow lamps and set up my entire container fleet in the middle of my living room. My cats certainly loved the indoor jungle. Desperate times call for desperate measures!

It's supposed to be sunny and 90 today in the Denver area. But...it's cloudy and in the 60s at the moment. I don't mind - I don't enjoy hot temperatures, and to be honest 82 is about the warmest I can handle and still feel sane. That said, I'm really dreading the next several days, with forecasted temps in the upper 90s. With the warm days recently, my pole beans are growing inches per day, and squash leaves seem to double in size between morning and evening!

We're clicking along with highs of 85-88, and at night its still down in the 40's. Early morning is wonderful.

Those are about our highs here, David. However, we have had 3 days above 90°. And, 5 nights that the thermometer did not drop below 60°.

I suppose it's a little scary that the summer of 2014 was one of record or near-record heat. And yet, neither of those temperature milestones, 90° for an afternoon high or 60° for a low was reached in June, 2014.

Steve

Well, it would seem the sun has returned with a VENGEANCE! High 80's, low 90's and into the mid 90's for the weekend. All this heat has started to suck up all the water and I swear the humidity is going to kill me. Though, I told that a couple from Florida today and they laughed at me and said "you think this is muggy? We're turning into raisins!"