.34


There was a nice little shower of rain last night, accompanied by some gentle grumbling thunder.  We registered .34 in our nifty new special super-accurate rain gauge recommended by cocorahs.org. With Rebeccai’s help I set it up last Saturday.  I was afraid given how dry we’ve been lately that it might be a long time before it got tested but this little shower was timely.  The gauge is structured so that one can easily tell to the 1/100th of an inch how much rain is in it, or snow.  Going by our old gauge on the fence I would have guessed .40 of an inch.  So far this month we’ve collect 1.54 inches, a little off our average of 2.07.  As hot as it has been we could use the extra .53 plus some.

Abigail has been away at camp this week.  She’ll return tomorrow (Saturday) and the Wylie women are due also.  That should liven things up around here some.  Rebecca has had volleyball camp this week, I think.  Not sure what K, S & V have been up to this summer, other than Kaylee turning 9 Wednesday, but maybe they’ll fill me in when they get here.

Don’t let the lack of mowing make you think I’m not keeping busy.  I’ve cleaned up around the perimeter from the constant drizzle of twigs the elms drop and leveled the weeds with trimmer.  If the dry weather persists, I’ll do a little tree trimming, when I’m not watering.  There is always some of that that needs to be done, especially to make it easier when I do mow.

While cleaning up in the southeast lane I noticed bees coming and going in the shed across the fence at the Storseth place.  I alerted Chris who alerted the current residents and together they made an attempt to remove them.  It turned out to be a large hive and Chris wasn’t able to capture the queen so they are still there.  Maybe they will make another stab at it sometime.

Recently I was watering a new planting on the east of the pond when a medium-sized frog jumped from the grass to my right to the pond on my left, a leap of about four feet.  As far as I know, that is the only one still surviving from the tadpoles we collected from Wildcat Bluff and put in the pond last summer.  There don’t seem to be any out at the Bluff this year so we may not give be able to give our survivor any company.

Speaking of the Bluff, I encountered a rattler in the trail a couple of weeks ago, probably a prairie rattler judging from the greenish color.  I gave it a wide birth.  I’m always watchful of rattlers when I’m out there but when I see one it reinforces my caution.  This week one of my naturalist buddies had to go home after a rattler gave her the fantods while she was working around the nature center.  Birdseed is kept in a couple of feeders just outside the back door of the center and I’ve noticed a lot of rats running back and forth between the back porch which they hide beneath and the feeders where they help themselves to the seeds the birds drop to the ground.  I figured it was just a question of time before a rattler showed up to enjoy the smorgasbord.  Vivian the director was out filling the bird feeders that same morning when she noticed a cottontail sitting motionless closer to her than she expected it to be comfortable with.  Then she noticed the rattler and used her phone to video the rattler make a snatch at the rabbit when the rabbit made its move.  It was a close thing but brer rabbit was quick enough to live to fight another day.  When I left the snake, a big black diamond back, was curled up half under the porch.