Author: Cat C L

Well, its been a slow light rain. Not the usual for Austin, but its good I’m sure for the plants. Last night we have about 1-1/2 inches of rain. Today, since midnight, we’ve had another 1.7 inches of rain. And the strange thing, we’re due for more rain for the next week. Currently the forecast is 80% chance of rain, and cooler weather along with it. We’ve hit all of 73 degrees today as our high. Nice weather. Who knows how long it will last? But meanwhile we have happy plants.

We’ve had days of hot weather. Even here at the house its been triple digit weather. Plants are dying here, getting brittle and brown. I’ve actually lost a couple of plants. We were gone as mentioned in my last month post, and many plants took a beating with the heat. And it hadn’t gotten any better. Grass has been crunchy and dry in our yard – we don’t water any lawn area.

Well, we suddenly got a weather change. In two days the temperatures have dropped from high 90’s and triple digits to the mid 80’s. Today we hit a high of about 85, and have fallen to 72 (as of my writing this). And it is raining.

Actually it began a short rain at around 6 in the morning. Its now the afternoon and its raining again. Our short rain this morning bare made it to 1/10th of an inch. Now we’ve got an inch, and its a light rain but still raining. I’m sure the plants are happy. With luck some of the plants will get what they need and come back.

At this point some of the tomatoes are looking a bit worse for the wear. I think I lost my 3 year old thyme plant, not happy about that. It died from lack of water. The only good news is I had already taken some cuttings and planted them and they are still growing well. These cuttings may take the place of the mother plant. Its been good thyme, and I’ve used it a lot so I would much prefer to keep it alive. I guess I can replant one of the babies into the mother plant container. The mother plant is in a large container, so I would much prefer to use that for my thyme. Also, my sorrel may have died from lack of water. So lots of the plants will benefit from this new rain.

And the weather channel says we might have this rain for the next week.

A storm just came up. We’ve had fairly clear skies with just a few puffy clouds today. Around 3pm there were some clouds in the sky that looked like they could grow.  Well, it appears they grew.  Around 7pm those dark clouds became wind. Throw things around wind. We went outside moved a few pots around. Just a few minutes after coming back in it began to rain.

In this short half hour we’ve still got wind, but now it’s got rain with it. The temp has gone from 97 to 74 degrees. We’ve had wind gusts to 32mph. And this rain. We’ve had well over 3/4 inches of rain, almost .9 inches.

This is good news since we haven’t had rain in a while. In our case we were also gone for a couple of days and as luck had it our watering system decided to stop when we left.  With all the heat we’ve had, the plants were not glad to go without water for a few days.  This water may not help those things that died, but hopefully some of the plants will revive after getting this rain.

Yeah for rain.

Today was a normal Tuesday. We did Pilates and massage this morning, then came home. That got us home a bit before 3pm. Well, it was sunny, bright, needed sun glasses and sunscreen. In an hour and a half it is now thunder, lightning, and rain clouds. It turned dark outside, an I can see rain in the not to distant horizon. We’ve gone from a temperature of 95, dropping to 79. We’ll see if we get rain, but conditions definitely changed quickly. Even if we don’t get rain here, its definitely around us. Welcome to Texas weather.

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HEAT INDEX VALUES WILL BE BETWEEN 102 TO 107 DEGREES THIS AFTERNOON. THE ELEVATED HEAT INDEX VALUES WILL CONTINUE THROUGH AT LEAST THURSDAY AS TEMPERATURES IN THE LOWER TO MIDDLE 90S COMBINE WITH DEW POINT VALUES IN THE MIDDLE TO UPPER 70S.”

This is the warning from weather.com for our area. They aren’t kidding either. I had to walk out to the mail box and even at 9AM it was mid 70’s with high humidity. Right now, 11:30 AM its 81 degrees with 79% humidity. And we will hit our high of warmer temperature later today. The air is still, not much breeze, and it is overcast. Those clouds seems to be holding in the warmth and the humidity. And later it will just get more oppressive than it is now. Not my favorite weather. Not one of those things I love about Texas. But it is early summer in Austin. It won’t get cooler for months.

And no rain in the forecast. But we might hit a high of 98 by Saturday.  We’ll wait and see.

This week we are due for highs in the 90’s. I guess summer is upon us. Though we haven’t had rain the past few days, they keep saying “spots” of thunderstorms. It was clear earlier, but now we have clouds, so who knows.

I think we’ve picked the last of the blueberries, but the blackberries are still producing as are the strawberries. Today there was a cantaloupe with a small hole from maybe a squirrel. We took it inside, cut it open, and had some. It was actually fairly good. And we’ve been picking apples here and there. Those are definitely good. Today for dinner we are having that cut cantaloupe, the last of the blueberries, some strawberries, some blackberries, and apple from the yard in a fruit salad. It looks good, I’m happy to say. I’m cooking a squash from the yard for a veggies, and I have some of those potatoes from the yard cooking with the chicken. Sounds good to me.

This is why we have a garden. Fresh fruit and veggies, no pesticides, we know what’s in them, and I can’t pick them any fresher. Its good stuff.

It had been a fairly clear day, with light puffy clouds. Until about 20 minutes ago. In fifteen minutes it dumped half an inch of rain. It came with lightning and thunder, some seemed rather close.  And now it seems to be gone. That’s not to say it may not come back,

Last night we topped out at .89 by midnight. Today had been light clouds, fair weather. But that was not to last. Just before 7pm we had rain. Not too much thank heavens, but another .29 inches. The current rain fall for the week is just over 5 inches. That’s a lot of rain for this time of year in this location. I think even some of the plants are getting a bit water logged. Not much we can do about it.

And summer is still coming.

Yes, we are back in flood warnings. In less than an hour we already have crossed 3/4 inches of rain. How much more rain we will get between now and morning we will find out. There’s been lightning, even though I haven’t heard much thunder. But I’m sure we’ll get more rain than just this. I’ll let you know tomorrow.