Posts Tagged ‘Rain’
Liquid Water
Even with the temperatures back under 32° (F) all day and night again, there is water on one of our trails that hasn’t re-frozen. I can only guess that it might be because there is enough volume moving past that spot toward lower ground. Flowing water is more resistant to freezing.
It takes a long dry spell in the summer for that spot to completely dry out, so it is no surprise that water is present now. I just find it odd that there isn’t more freezing going on.
Walking along on the crunchy snow of the trail, it’s weird to suddenly come upon a splash and a squish on a cold winter day.
I suppose I should get used to it. Seems like this winter we are getting as many rain events as snowfalls. Today’s weather forecast includes chances of rain and snow with a high temperature of 38°.
This ain’t my daddy’s winter weather.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Rain Results
We are back home on the ranch and I am walking Delilah across the slippery, crusty snow on our trails again. It is interesting to see how the water from the rain on Christmas day continued to flow beneath the snow on a journey to lower terrain. There was enough pressure behind the draining water to push it up over places where water before it had reached open air and froze, thus creating slippery mounds of ice across trails in several places.
It appears that the majority of the rain water that pooled up in our drainage swale and the lower areas of our back pasture and front hay-field has frozen in place.
Looks like I could create a little skating rink of my own right here at home.
While the trails in the woods have now frozen pretty solid, there are many spots where it is easy to see the remaining evidence of the layer of water that was underneath the snow.
My foot prints from tromping through the mess last week are now frozen proof.
It’s going to take a significant snowfall to fill the hollows of my boot prints and cover the slippery hard packed pathways left behind after that unseasonal Christmas thunderstorm.
Unfortunately, that kind of weather event isn’t showing up as likely in the weather forecast for the week ahead. That means the footing will remain treacherous for walking the dog.
Maybe I should look into a sled I could sit on so she can pull me around on her walks. It would be a good distraction for her to have a purpose other than sniffing every molecule of evidence left by critters who have shared the trails with her in the recent past.
It is pretty obvious by her behaviors that there are many of them and they are leaving their scent on branches as well as in the tracks they leave behind.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Last Thing
There was one last thing I’ve been wanting to do in the paddock before the winter weather sets in for good this season. When we had the fences installed to create our two paddock spaces, the smaller side encompassed two trees. There was a gorgeous willow tree with a cottonwood close beside it.
It didn’t take long for both trees to show evidence of not being entirely happy about the new arrangement, but the willow has at least continued to show signs of life. The cottonwood gave up in the first year. It has been standing dead for quite a while now and the small branches from it have started to litter the ground with increasing frequency.
The tree makes a convenient scratching post for the horses, so I have no interest in cutting it down. I just wanted to cut off the branches and leave the snag for birds to perch on and horses to rub against.
Mark this one off as “Done.”
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Bringing all those branches down created quite a pile that needed to be dealt with. I tend to overlook that detail when I get all fired up to trim our trees. Cutting branches down ends up being a small part of the whole project.
Luckily, George was available to help and I opted to try chipping them without delay. The other option was to move the pile somewhere and save the chipping for a future opportunity. That could lead to a lot of chances for procrastination, so I felt pretty good about taking quick action on this occasion.
I cranked up both the ATV and the diesel tractor, attached a trailer to the former and the chipper to the latter and away we went. Parking the trailer beside the chipper allowed us to fill it directly from the chute and save any extra handling to convert a pile of branches into chips unloaded in our convenient storage location by the labyrinth.
That leaves me about as ready as I’ve ever been for freezing temperatures and oodles of snow to arrive for winter. Unfortunately, the weather continues to run warmer than normal and the precipitation we are getting is all rain.
Do they make galoshes for snowshoes? I might have to get me some of those so I can do some trekking in all this rain.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Rain’s Back
At least we had a week where it didn’t rain on us. Yesterday afternoon, the ground was just starting to show signs of drying out a bit. That’s over now. 
The horses were grazing in a tight cluster under the gloomy sky. I’m pretty sure they had a sense of what was coming our way. The precipitation made a slow approach, prolonging the wait for the inevitable.
I had just the plan for a rainy night. I had volunteered to prepare dinner for George and Anneliese, and I was serving up my specialty. I brought home a pizza.
That meant we could warm up the kitchen by using the oven. But, shhhh… don’t tell Cyndie. I had her favorite pizza delivered to my workplace, half-baked. She wouldn’t want to know she was missing her beloved deep-dish and more episodes of our current tv series addiction, 2007’s “Life” with Damian Lewis, Sarah Shahi, and Adam Arkin.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
We’ll keep that secret just between us.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Rainy Results
One day later, with the sun shining brightly, I surveyed the results of our crazy mid-summer type of thundershower in October. As I drove in the driveway after work, I could see right away from the car that the grass was laid flat below the culvert.
There was a clear impression of how wide the little runoff river rose after the deluge.
Our rain gauge collected over an inch from Monday night’s dramatic evening cloud burst, and that was on top of a previously accumulated inch that Cyndie had dumped out of the gauge after a drenching earlier that same day.
When we moved to this property, which happened exactly 4 years ago this week, we had no idea the warming climate was going to start dishing out the kind of gully-washing downpours that we have witnessed with increasing regularity each year since.
We have tried a variety of ways to manage the flow —or with regard to the sub-soil, the lack of flow— of water across our land. One trick to reduce the muddiness of our paddocks was the installation of drain tile to help dry out the soil in the springtime, but that didn’t do much to help with the immediate surface runoff of heavy downpours.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Pouring rains rush down our slopes and carve a multitude of rills around the paddocks below the barn. Dezirea surveyed the sad scene with me yesterday and agreed it kinda sucks.
The geography of our property makes this a difficult thing to prevent, especially since both the frequency and intensity of rainfall have continued to increase since we arrived.
Water will always find a path downhill. The hilly features that we adore so much about this property are also the cause of our erosion problems. We want water to drain from our land, but we would like it to depart with a lot less energy, …preferably leaving all our precious lime screenings behind.
That’s hard to accomplish when the clouds repeatedly unleash inch amounts in spans as short as mere minutes.
Maybe we should look into terracing the paddocks and turning them into rice paddies. Do they make rubber boots that fit horses?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Startling Storm
I had a ready-made excuse for not working on the chicken coop construction after work yesterday, because rain was falling from the sky. I drove through a couple of heavy downpours on my way home, but it wasn’t raining too hard when I pulled into our driveway.
I must have just missed it, though, because the drainage swale across our pastures was filled with rushing water. Cyndie reported we had received an inch in a very short span of time.
While having dinner with George and Anneliese, something caught my eye outside one of the high triangle windows beside our fireplace chimney. It appeared to be “snowing” leaves high in the sky. A combination of high wind and more rain was stripping the leaves en mass from our trees.
The sky grew dark and Cyndie said she thought it would hail.
“No, it’s not going to hail.” I said. “It’s just looks like this because it’s the middle of October and the sun is low.”
A minute or so after that, it started to hail.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
You’d think I would better know to heed her intuition by this point in our lives together.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Cold Rain
Okay. About that idea I wrote of yesterday that we might have a string of dry days to celebrate this week… Not exactly. I drove home from work in rain and by the time dinner was done last night, the temperature had dropped into the 40s (F).
Our furnace got turned on yesterday morning, and we lit a fire in the fireplace last night.
If it weren’t for the leftover leaves still attached to the tree branches, I’d think it was already October. Wet and cold. Cyndie made apple crisp which helped take some of the edge off.
The horses got a night in the barn because Cyndie was concerned about preventing their hooves from being wet all night.
Part of me wants to lament over the rapid disappearance of September, but I’m thinking I should avoid moping about it and put my sights on what lies ahead. I might as well start waxing my skis and getting the snow blade mounted on the ATV.
Winter is not far off. It’s a good thing it’s my favorite season of the year. Looking forward to it is so much more fun than dreading what is to come.
If it weren’t for all these constant distractions, I might make better progress at living fully in the present moment. The art of doing that continues to be something I struggle to accomplish.
It doesn’t help that lately the present moments so often involve rain around here. Who can be blamed for needing a break from that repetition?
I like to imagine what it would be like if our temperatures were already below freezing during these recent batches of precipitation. Speaking of which, I wonder where I put my igloo making fixture.
Of course, the next thought that comes to my mind when thinking about snow this year is, I should have purchased that fat bike I was looking at over the summer. 
See how one thing leads to the next?
It’s the kind of mental exercise that one falls into when the weather outside gets cold and rainy.
Looks like Thursday through Sunday holds some promise for dry sunshine. That would go a long way toward helping me enjoy the last days of September to the fullest…
Completely, in each and every one of those moments.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
More Love
Picking up where I left off yesterday, on the subject of love…
I had a moment —well quite a few moments, actually— of being overwhelmed by simultaneous competing demands on my attention at the day-job yesterday. In the midst of the crazy-making, I felt an urge to be standing in the energy of our 4 horses.
I think they were sending me love.
I made a mental note to get myself down with them when I got home from work, rain or shine. This region has been under siege by downpours of heavy rain lately. My late departure from the cities turned out to be mostly trouble-free, both from traffic and precipitation.
When I got within a mile of home, I spotted standing water in some of the farm fields. As I pulled into our driveway, I saw water running in our drainage ditch. We had obviously received a significant amount of rain just a short time before. Cyndie confirmed it had poured hard.
The rain gauge contained 1.25 inches. The horses seemed entirely calm and collected with the situation. I needed to dig out a run-off route that had filled in and caused water to flow where we don’t want it to go.
Working there in the paddock put me right where I wanted to be among the herd. Legacy was particularly friendly and approached me to connect in a way that seemed a little uncharacteristic of him.
I think he knew it was just what I was hoping for.
Standing with them, breathing, loving, and feeling loved.
Horse medicine for what was ailing me.
I loved it.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Uncharacteristic Wetness
Over and over, day after day, waves of precipitation have been dumping rain on top of the rain from the day before. Even though we might get a couple of dry days every so often between the waves, it hasn’t been enough time for the ground to drain.
This isn’t the kind of weather we usually get at this time of year. In my lifetime, the middle of summer would be when lawns started to turn brown and required watering. As fall arrived, the creek beds and swamps would all be dry.
That doesn’t seem to be happening anymore. Last year, I was surprised that I had to keep mowing the lawn just as frequently in the fall as I did in the spring. Now it is happening again, although this year it is even worse. I can’t keep up with mowing the fast-growing grass because the rain has been too persistent.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The wetness this year has led to the dermatitis our horses are dealing with, and yesterday I noticed the excessive moisture is starting to show up on the house and garage. The step to the front door of our house stayed wet along the seam and was showing signs of moss growth. The stones along the base of the garage are turning green with algae.
It feels like the climate is changing.
I wonder if anyone is looking into the possibility.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Very Wet
Yesterday was a beautiful day and we spent the middle hours of it in moderate traffic driving home from the lake. I don’t know why it didn’t bother me more to have driven up to that beautiful place and then experience most of the time confined indoors due to incredibly wet weather. When it finally turned nice, we were packing up and driving home.
For some reason, I didn’t mind one bit.
Just like that, we were home and it was back to the regular routine. I finished the day mowing our grass. The ground was completely saturated in many areas, surprisingly so in the back yard, to the point that the mower left muddy tire tracks in its wake. There is standing water in multiple places, which I needed to navigate around instead of cutting.
I’m looking forward to the few days of dry weather being forecast for the beginning of this week.
The signal booster I ordered last week is scheduled to arrive Wednesday. Getting it installed and calibrated will become my primary objective on Friday if the weather permits.
If it works as intended, it should significantly reduce the time it takes for me to load photos and program my daily posts. I’m hoping to convert the precious freed up minutes into added sleep time.
Getting more sleep will be a welcome change to my daily routine. I’m hoping my posts will begin to reflect it with a little bit less sleep-typing going on during the processsssssss.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Relative Something 