Now everyone that was wishing that the rain would stop have finally gotten their wish. One hardship follows another. Oh well! good old summer time in Oklahoma. At least it isn't freezing. Just trying to put a good spin on it.

Ugh. I need to water again. I got my handy-dandy moisture meter out there today, and everything is getting dry again.

We always want what we don't have, and good old Oklahoma weather obliges us by sending us either no rain at all or nothing but rains for days on end. OK Weather just doesn't do middle-of-the-road, moderate anything. That's true that it isn't freezing, but I sure would love to wake up to 48 or 50 degrees one morning just as a reminder of what a cool, crisp morning would feel like.

I hand-watered containers. That took more energy than I had. Everything else will have to wait a few more days, but I watered a few days ago, so they are okay. The plants may think they are too dry, and they may be right, but there's a limit to how much I'm going to water them them at this point. We might need the water more in July and August, and dangit, July is almost here already. I don't understand where June went. It just flew by.

I can SEE the clouds to the north, looks like they are right on top of me, but radar shows the storm up by Bartlesville and moving to the south east. It could clip us in passing, but I'll bet it doesn't. I watered any way. Some over OKC way, but not very big.

RAIN! Guage has abot 1/4 inch (that has fallen in about 15 minutes. If I can just sqeak by the hail. Really windy, too. Tore my sunshades down.

Rain was so loud this morning that it woke me. Three miles south it didn't look like it rained at all, but eventually they did get a little sprinkle. The Delaware Mesonet registered .02, but you can see a nice blue line over northern Delaware County. It was a nice rain at my house. I think I'm in the doughnut hole for tonight's showers though.

There's 3/4 of an inch in the gauge. The drainage ditch is roaring with white water. All that came in less than 45 minutes. I would prefer a slow soak. Most of it will have run off. Y'all can thank me for watering. Maybe I should wash my car.

It's good some of you got rain. The dry areas need a lot more. We haven't had measurable rain at our house since June 3rd, so things are getting sort of crispy. On the brighter side, we haven't had a flood in at least 3 weeks now. That must mean drought is on its way.

I wish you'd gotten a slow soaking rain too, Amy, but any rain is better than none.

Carol, You may be in the doughnut hole, but we're not even in the box of doughnuts. Our chances are 0%, which doesn't give a person much hope.

I could have told you exactly where that drought was. The center of it is my house! Rain has continually avoided OKC, and specifically my neighborhood! Strange though, I thought Bon got more rain than that map shows.

AmyinOwasso,

I learned something this year. One of our gardens is prone to flooding. I noticed that if I rough plow most of it the water that would have run to the lower end will instead soak in before it gets to the lower end.

I just found it interesting.

Johnny

No plowing here, Johnny. Not even a roto tiller. I read an article that essentially said overflow from rain barrels (which I don't have yet) can be directed to your garden, not on the plants, but in path ways. Where it soaks in and is available later to the garden plants later. I don't know how much can soak in when it comes down that fast. I keep trying to talk DH into rain barrels. He's not excited yet. We did get a slow rain off and on today.

Owasso neighborhoods were cow pastures until about 30 years ago. They have a network of drainage ditches which have been handled and mishandled by the city over the years. Their purpose and maintenance is often at odds. Slowing down the water and preventing erosion was at adds with their desire to make it easy to mow. When we moved here it was more like a creek, with big trees and willows. Rather pretty. But they couldn't get a tractor through it, so they cut down the trees. The sides have eroded so bad that on the far side there's no room for a tractor any more. They came in this year and built some areas back up (a power pole was in danger of falling into the ditch) they've put big boulders along the sides and in the bed to try to slow the erosion. When water comes through fast like it did yesterday it is VERY loud. There's even a little water fall. But all that water ran off the yards and will end up in the local pond or on to the river. It rained even more "upstream" than it did here.

Because ours is a strongly sloping garden with raised beds, each pathway serves as a bit of a swale, holding excess moisture right in the path with the lumber-edged raised beds serving as a dam that holds back the water. The pathways higher up in the garden hold less water than the ones downhill, with the lowest pathways holding the most water. I use this to my advantage---planting the plants that need the best drainage higher up in the garden and the ones most tolerant of wet roots lower in the garden where they can guzzle the water held in adjacent pathways after heavy rainfall. While I am not especially happy about having to walk in standing water in the pathways following periods of heavy rainall, I do like that some of the rainwater is held and captured in place instead of it all running downhill into the creek, and mud, muck and rain boots exist for a reason.

Out here in the country where most of us live in unincorporated areas that are not part of a town or city, we all are responsible for controlling our own water flow and erosion. Some people do a great job of managing it, and some don't. Those of us with mostly clay soil have an easier time directing water flow just with minor contouring, but it is more difficult for folks with sandy loam or sand that erodes very easily. The county does its best to keep the bar ditches flowing water to the creeks, and they do periodic work along the creeks (mostly the placement of tons of rip rap rocks along the creek banks near roadways where there's tons of runoff in heavy rain) to prevent erosion, but it is hard to manage flash flooding levels of water as so much runoff occurs in such a short time. It helps if individual landowners keep their culverts cleaned out and free of debris so that water doesn't back up at a clogged culvert and run out into the road. I've noticed that a couple of miles to our north where there is a housing subdivision and where the land has been graded to be more flat and level, they have a lot more trouble with clogged culverts and flash flooding in the roadways, whereas at our end of the road where the land hasn't been manipulated a lot (at least not recently), our water flows better and our roads almost never flood, even though we have steeper, sloping land. Right now we'd just like to have some water flowing somewhere that's not coming through a water hose.

On some pieces of property, including part of ours, contouring lines from back in the farming days (I think our land was last actually farmed in the 1960s or 1970s but was ranched until we bought it) still direct the flow of water, with swales often holding water for days to weeks after heavy rainfall. I think the farmers who plowed those contouring lines into their farms decades ago would be proud that all these years later, their work still pays off.

Here is an interesting film about water harvesting. It is at the bottom of the article and a little slow to get to the point, but very interesting.

Constructed in 1930's

Johnny Coleman,

If a man keeps paying attention he will never quit learning.

soonergrandmom,

Thanks a lot for the link. I shared it on my FB page.

That's what I want to leave for my kids !

authereray,

Some folks are waking up to the fact that a technique that works well one place, may not work as well or even at all in another place.

You may have hit the nail on the head. I am always wanting to learn more and I love to watch plants grow. It must be in my blood.

Johnny

Another inch last night. Should take my patch out of Abnormally Dry.

I watered heavily yesterday thinking,if it rains, it wouldn't be enough. I stuck something in one of the cracks. A foot deep. Yesterday was great day to do laundry. It was hot and windy, but that's horrible on my soil that has no mulch!

In some areas I refuse to mow. I'm going to regret it when it comes time to remove the poplar tree saplings, but these areas haven't much growth and need more roots in the soil to prevent erosion. Right now I'm glad I didn't mow. The primary section for which I am most concerned is from an old potato patch. I didn't know too much about soil back them. I over-sifted to extract the weeds and weed roots. I, literally, destroyed the soil in an area prone to erosion!

Live and learn.