At last, a real rain! It has rained off and on all day and the clouds have kept the precious moisture from being sucked up into humidity before it could soak in.
In all of my life, I have never seen the ground so hard an so dry. Many trees are dying, and some that have survived are already beginning to get their fall color a month or more early. That must be their defense against the drought; they just go dormant. Maybe the September rains will come and quench the earth again. The weatherman says that just since June, we are 11 inches behind our average rainfall.
One of our sons gets his water from a spring on his property, and he has been without water for almost 6 weeks. He has had the local fire department bring him 2,000 gallons of water to replenish his cisterns and holding tanks. He is very frugal with his water and saves as much as he can. Our well is holding up, but we have always tried to never waste water. We turn off the water when we brush our teeth, and I water the flowers with any left over water from dinner or from the tea pot (after it cools or I pour hot water on weeds around the stone path to kill them). Water is a precious resource, and it is good to see it rain again.
