Sunday, October 4, 2020

2020

We have not had a lot of rain this summer. The rain that we  have  had is interesting...it seems like very spotty showers. Earlier, I told you about the isolated storms we've had, how one town can get a deluge, but where you're at gets nothing. I was driving down the road watching a wall of rain coming down in the field next to me. It was a strange situation. That storm did hit eventually and the winds were devastating, doing a lot of damage. The rain was wicked, but the whole storm dashed through without any real accumulation. 

The creek that runs along my quiet brick street has been very low for most of the summer, which made it a great place for William to play while we were working like gang busters trying to get the little house done for a new tenant. He was able to wade quite a distance out to catch crayfish and clams to film them with his tablet. 

Despite all this evidence smack in front of our faces, it still came as a shock to be watching the news a couple weeks ago, to hear it said that we are officially in a moderate drought

Since then, we've been mindful of the weather although it is hard to gauge. We have had very over cast days, and we've had some spritzing sorts of rain, a light drizzle that moves quickly through without any real accumulation. Although the retirement property is maybe 20 miles from here, the picture there could be completely different. We check in with my sister regularly.

Last weekend, when I went up to water the new raspberries, I gave them a good soaking, I also reluctantly lay them down and covered them with a good thick blanket of mulch and wet that too. I didn't feel as if I had a choice really. Not happy with the apples from several trees, the deer have been nibbling on those shoots. I was afraid if I left them upright, the deer would destroy them completely. It's what I would have done with them once it got good and cold anyway, but we've had multiple frosts and it has been in the forties at night. 

In any case, when I was done with the work, I went inside to start dinner. Except that when I tried to wash my hands, there was no water. That is the first time that has happened in the three years that we've had the property. Tim went to the breaker box outside on the pole and shut off the power to the pump to avoid burning it up. 

The well recovered within an hour and he was able to turn the pump back on, but that was a bit of a surprise. I decided not to shower there, but to wait until I was home. 

Today, in the local paper, they asked everyone in town to voluntarily cut back on water usage. 

Tim and I shook our heads and made uneasy jokes about 2020. Really, It has been a heck of a year. Pandemic. School closing. Windstorms. Crazy politics. Now a drought. 

I wondered aloud whether we were going to expect some awful winter coming up. Just a couple winters ago, we wound up with more than 200 inches of snow falling in nearby Erie. "It would be about right," I said, 'if on top of everything else that's going on we have another record breaking winter."

Tim looked at me in his quiet Tim way. "That won't happen," he said. "The ground needs to be saturated for snow to fall and accumulate. If we're still in a drought, the water table will be too low."

2020 has been a year hasn't it? When New Year's Eve rolls around, I vote we all stay up. We need to make sure that 2020 actually leaves. Drag in 2021 by force if necessary. 


8 comments:

  1. Your rain sounds like Florida weather. It can be raining at my house but not across the street. Rain stops and starts and you can see the wet and dry on the road, it is like a tap is turned on or off.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We are all praying for a wetter than usual Summer here - as we have had far too many of the drier than usuals for the last good many.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We have our own digital setup to monitor our rainfall. I've learned that what we get can be vastly different from the "official" reading at our regional airport, which is 13 miles to our west.

    We often have drought conditions, but I don't think we do this year. We had quite a bit of rain the past two months, thanks to Laura and Beta.

    If only things would miraculously change at the stroke of the new year.....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Reminds me of the days we lived at the old place where we had well water and spent many a dry summer walking out to the nearby cornfield to take care of business.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Better the corn than the potatoes, Ed. The potatoes have eyes. The well is a shallow one. We'll probably have it redrilled and go deeper. But this is the first time that we've run out of water. My sister and BIL have spring water, and have been fine. Mighty peculiar weather.

    ReplyDelete
  6. And Kelly? Don't you be shattering my illusions, sister!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks, Debby, for stopping. I'm holding Tim to to that projection of unrecord breaking winter and, ergo, snowfall. Though you live in a very rough piece of Pennsylvania. I've been through Buffalo in a blizzard.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I was stationed in Watertown NY up by the Canadian border. My nephew is stationed there now. My only piece of advice was: 'when they tell you it's going to snow 2 feet over night, believe them.'

    ReplyDelete

I'm glad you're here!

Weary

I am sure that everyone has seen the video of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. I lived in Baltimore for a couple years while my...