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July 15, 2007

Rain

When I was growing up, I hated rain. I'm sure that most kids my age thought the same thing. It kept me in-doors, away from my friends and didn't serve any real purpose ... at least in the opinion of a 10 year old, anyhow. As I grew up, my appreciation of rain didn't change for the most part. While I knew that it was a necessity for life, I found it depressing and an irritation when I had to go to the car to drive to work. Having to pull out an umbrella to keep from getting wet was a hassle, at best.

It's amazing how one's opinion of rain can change when you own a home.

Amanda and I have been at the house 5 months now. In this period of time, it hasn't rained much at all. As a matter of fact, I would say that I could count the total number of days with any kind of significant rain on one hand. I definitely haven't seen a day where it did nothing but rain all day, much less where it rained several days in a row. As a direct result of all this non-rain, my yard has been suffering greatly.

Initially, I attempted to water my yard twice a week to help offset the lack of moisture in the ground. I would water both the front and back 4 hours each on both Saturday and Sunday. I soon realized that this was a futile attempt to keep the ground saturated, as it would take a significant amount of water to do so in the hot spring and summer days. Therefore, I made the decision to water the lawn enough to keep the grass from completely drying out and dying.

And now that's gotten to be a bit of a challenge as well. It's been so damn dry and humid over the past two months that I would literally need to water my yard on almost a daily basis in order to keep any kind of moisture in the ground. The grass has turned yellow in quite a few areas and the only parts of the yard that are actually staying any kind of green are the shaded parts next to the house.

I pray for rain these days.

My neighbor, Scotty, said it best to me when I first met him: "Rain is free water". And boy, was he ever correct. After seeing my water bill come in from the attempts to keep my lawn hydrated, I see myself wanting it to rain more and more these days. Any time that it does rain, it puts a smile on my face. I'm in a better mood when I see rain clouds forming and when I actually see it raining, I'm half tempted to go out and just stand in it just so I can appreciate it better.

We're half way through the summer months now, so I feel like we're at the peak of the misery. I'm hoping at this point in time that we may begin to see an increase in precipitation and that my poor yard will once again begin to show some green. I'm hoping that before Winter hits that I will be able to enjoy my back yard a few more times ... having a bar-be-que with my friends and neighbors and such.

Here's to hoping.

~out...

Posted by ed at July 15, 2007 04:15 PM

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