Congratulations on your productive day. It was so nice outside today. It was almost cool when I went on a bike ride this morning and nearly ran over a neighbor's hen. The silly thing kept coming towards my bike. She was a pretty girl though. It was a ridiculous scene with braking bike and flapping and feathers flying.

I would never let my dogs help in the garden. They're bad and it would be destroyed.

Yes, clouds covered the blue moon for me too. Is there any special thing we're supposed to do in the garden during a blue moon?

I love frogs/toads too. They are everywhere! We have this hole thing in the ground near our well pump. Everyday I pull toads out of it. It will fill with water when it rains. Last week, I went to check it and there was a toad with a cricket sitting on his back...just floating. I never have my phone or camera at moments like this. I got them both out. I'm thinking a cover for this hole thing is in order.

I've enjoyed my first few days of August. That may change on Wednesday.

Regarding the blue moon. A 'Blue moon' is just the second full moon in a calendar month which only happens 'once in a blue moon' (about every 2.5 years). Has nothing to do with the color of the moon.

I've linked the Keetch-Byram Drought Index map below. A quick glance at it shows you the parts of Oklahoma where drought is likely to return, and sooner rather than later if decent rainfall doesn't start falling. It is hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that some of these areas have KBDI numbers in the 400s-600s already, just a few weeks after prolonged heavy rainfall led to massive flooding. If it helps to know what is typical, "normal" KBDI numbers fall into these ranges: 0-200 for spring, 200-400 for summer, 400-600 for autumn and 600-800 for winter. Often, if you're having regular rainfall you never make it into the typical autumn or winter numbers at all. So, for SE OK to have areas already near or over 600 is astonishing. While these numbers are a tool used by firefighers and emergency management type folks, I use them to understand the conditions my garden faces. Since I watch them anyway, year-round, for fire planning purposes, I've learned how bad off my garden is when our KBDI is 400, 500 or whatever. I know from previous years that once we hit 500, I might as well stop watering because at that point, while I might be able to keep the garden alive, I'm not likely to be able to keep it productive. That is especially true if we hit 500 in the summer months. Usually, once we are hitting the 500s here, regardless of the time of the year, we start having wildfires. Then, the higher the number goes, the more intense the fire is and the harder it is to control. One reason last week's many fire calls shocked me was that our KBDI was still in the upper 300s then, so we were not expecting the fires to be as intense as they were or as frequent.

My August has started out much more quietly than July ended, so hooray for that. I haven't seen a snake for two days, and that might be partly because it has been so hot that I've mostly hid out indoors. We still have had a rabid skunk (or possibly more than one) out roaming in the daylight hours, but yesterday one of our neighbors shot a skunk that was out in their yard in broad daylight, so I'm hoping that is the one that has been out every day lately.

Our frog population has been big all summer, and since snakes eat frogs, that may be one reason we have so many snakes coming so close to the house.

In the garden, which I need to water today, the flowers still look pretty good, though dry, and everything else doesn't look nearly as good. This heat without rainfall has been brutal on the garden these last few weeks. At least I don't have to mow the yard. It's barely grown at all since I mowed last week.

We have had a few sprinkles this morning, but very few. I looked hard at the rain gauge and it hasn't even amounted to 1/100th of an inch yet.

Our hottest weather of the year so far will be occurring later this week and I'm dreading that. I'm always so relieved when August ends.

Dawn

Oklahoma KBDI Map

Thanks Dawn, I really didn't need to see that. I'm right in the middle of the 583-642 area. This area dries out fast.

Robert, I know! I wasn't sure how close those high KBDIs are to you, but I told Tim the other day that I thought that bad area was very close to you and I was wondering if it was affecting you. I figured with a KBDI that high, at least you could get all the hay hauled now that the ground is dry. Of course, you don't need for it to be that dry.

When we had roughly a fire a day last week and the green grass was burning, that shocked me. I knew we were drying out rapidly but didn't realize it was that bad---likely because I have been watering the garden so it is pretty moist and that probably gave me a false sense of how dry it really is becoming. The fires in our neighborhood were on a ranch that still had tons and tons of this year's round bales sitting in the field awaiting hauling. The adjacent ranch, towards which the fire was moving, had hauled some of their hay but still had bales in the field at the northern edges. Had the wind been blowing from a different direction, either or both ranchers could have lost at least a portion of, or even all of, their hay harvest. To have that even be an issue about a month after flooding just blows my mind. Back in June and even in early July when rain was still falling and river bottom lands were still flooded, I figured we wouldn't be in trouble, fire-wise, until after the first frost. I was wrong. Of course, I was hoping the rain wouldn't just shut down completely like it has.

In the areas where we have mowed recently, the grass has been very slow to regrow and green up and I hate the look of the brown stubble. Out back where we haven't mowed in about 3 weeks, though, it is fairly green so I hate to cut it. I am not going to cut that field until wildfire is happening closer to us....like next door or something.

I find myself walking a fine line now. I like to leave the pastures taller so that there's wildflowers in bloom and setting seed, but leaving it tall makes snakes harder to see, and this is the worst copperhead year we have had in a decade. They are everywhere, they are aggressive in a way they normally are not, and they must be running out of field mice and voles to eat because they're in our yard and garden eating frogs in the afternoon. I should have known the abundance of frogs in the still-green areas would attract the snakes, but I was in denial and trying to forget that it inevitably would happen. I might just mow a couple of wide paths through the back pasture so we can walk through if we need to. At least with a wide path you can walk through and hopefully see a snake before you step on it.

The timber rattlers haven't been too bad, but every one I've seen has been hanging out near my hugelkultur beds, which makes me a nervous wreck about working anywhere near them. The rat snakes also are very prolific. Ugh. I wonder if they are running out of wild things to eat too because every one we see is either in our chicken coop or headed straight for it, and if they get there before we've gathered the eggs, they'll eat every egg.

Dawn

Dawn, I don't know what to say. The fires and the snakes are a lot to deal with. I guess we have to get through the first of August before we start to cool off. I think the nights will begin to cool down in late August first of September so the mornings and evenings will be cooler. We just have to hang in there till it happens. I hope your snakes move back to the river, just the thought of dealing with copperheads and rattlers is difficult. Keep your gun handy and stay safe.

stockergal, I'm beyond not knowing what to say too. I don't even know what to do. I watch my feet so very carefully when I walk, even if I am walking on pavement where you obviously could see a snake.....the abundance of venomous snakes and the pesky rat snakes is making me a nervous wreck. Mostly I stay indoors.

Even though a neighbor shot a rabid skunk out in broad daylight yesterday, there was one out today around 12:30 pm and I think it was walking through our woods. I'd bet it is down by the creek, but we can't go into the woods to shoot it because the woodland is full of venomous snakes. We are at the point where we can't win....

Hopefully the skunk will come out of hiding and we can shoot it, because everyone knows a skunk out in broad daylight is bad news and likely rabid.

I'll just have to be patient and wait for the wild beasties to settle down and, in the meantime, just be extra careful when outdoors. Now that it is so snakey, I am not doing any weeding. It is just too risky to stick my hands into anything where a snake possibly could be,

One thing I find interesting is that I'm barely seeing any non-venomous snakes, other than the rat snakes. Where are all the striped racers? the brown snakes? the rough green tree snakes? Other than having one racer in the garden and seeing one rough green tree snake twice in there a couple of days apart, all the non-venomous ones have disappeared.

Oh, and I made a comment the other day about smelling the copperheads. I believe they are hanging out along our southern fenceline. We mow the grass along that fence line, but the next door neighbor does not, and about 30' south of the fenceline, the neighbor's woodland begins. I think the snakes are living in there and coming down to our front yard to hunt frogs, which are plentiful this year. Every time I pass a certain area, especially when I am mowing or have just mowed, I get that whiff of the muskey, snakey aroma. I suspect they think I'm coming for them and are releasing that musky scent to warn me away. Some people say it smells like copper, but I don't really perceive a strong copper odor. Others say it smells musky like muskmelon or watermelon plants, or even like cucumber plants, but to me it doesn't smell like any of those things. It just smells like a copperhead. Once you're smelled it, you'll recognize it forever. I had smelled it every day for a couple of weeks before I saw that big broad-banded copperhead. One day, I was out there with the string trimmer, cutting the tall stuff below the lowest strand of barbed wire fencing and I smelled it. I immediately looked down at my feet, saw they were clear, and immediately backed away from the area. I stopped weedeating and told Tim he'd have to finish because I wasn't going to go back into that area. The grass is still sitting there tall, waiting to be cut, because he has been so busy with fires and work. And, it is that tall area that the copperhead disappeared into the other day. At least I know a specific area to avoid.

Some years the snakes are only bad around my garden although they always are bad in the woods. This year, they haven't been bad around the garden but have been awful up around the house and the chicken coops. It's always something, I guess.

Dawn

I tell you what... I've been wanting to buy a house out in the country, but you have sure scared that idea out of my head! If I saw a snake, I would flat out die. Heart attack or fainting and landing on the snake!

Don't let the snakes scare you. The wonders out weigh the bad. I live in the country and rarely see a snake. I wouldn't trade it for every snake free house in town. I'm sure Dawn would agree, don't focuse on the negative. Go on. Buy that country place and live in constant awe of nature both good and bad.

nowyousedum, even I'm amazing after being away from deep country since childhood that I still now how to watch out. I had to clear a pile of junk wood up in the yard that was about 4' deep last week. I got a long-handled tool and shook the tar out of the pile while carefully working. I was certain to stand on the side that had been mowed so I could watch the ground.