Ahhh, the rain came starting at about 1:15 am...it has been raining hard for two hours so far and I cannot sleep, it is now 3:15 am. I laid there for at least an hour, most the time I only give myself thirty minutes to go back to sleep, but 1:15 am is awful early to be getting up and starting your day.
We knew the rain was coming, after five years living in East Texas you get to know when the rainy season starts and try and plan around it. You have to keep an eye on the weather because sometimes, we will get 8 inches of rain in one day. I bought a new rain gauge this year...the old one was emptied so many times that the painted numbers and hash marks had disappeared. I tried sticking vinyl tape over it so we could still use it, but taking the tube that fills with rain out so often peeled that away too.
I am behind on all my chores, never did get the dormant oil sprayed on my fruit trees and I noticed some are already about to leaf out, Chickasaw Plums are partially blooming too, and daffodils have started blooming. I look forward to spring, but this year I am really not ready for it yet. I have not started my vegetable seeds yet, nor have I tilled my garden. It is only February 21st isn’t it? Still winter, yet it was almost 80 yesterday when I was out digging trenches around in my poultry yard. I was attempting to keep areas from flooding, trying to divert the water to the lower part of the yard and to the creek. When I work that hard, it seems I usually can’t sleep very well, such is the case tonight.
I mail ordered trees to plant this year, instead of getting them from the big box stores or the feed store. I added and planted, almond, cherry, nectarine, elderberry, two more fig, two more blueberry, and two different varieties of pear (suppose to be blight resistant)...to replace the one that died and the one that broke off at about a foot above the ground. They are all pretty small, except the blueberry plants and figs are an OK size. One of my figs died year before last and I didn’t replace it until now. I pretty much just have a bunch of sticks sticking up out of the ground, some don’t have any branches...it will be awhile before I get any fruit or nuts off of them, except maybe the blueberry plants. I moved my grapevines too, only one has ever put on grapes, I hope they do better where I moved them. I also changed over to cattle panels to support them, the fencing I had used got a bit chewed up by the weed eater. I really need to mulch around everything, I have been saving brown paper feed bags to lay down around the plants before I put mulch down. I may have to go rake up leaves and twigs from the forest floor to use as mulch.
As for my bathroom renovation, it is paused for the moment. I am trying not to hatch any chicks or anything else until it is completed. But I really needed to get some chores caught up on, and get my garden chores started along with the seeds. I also need to finish my drainage project around the house. I have some more materials, and I dug the trenches, but I have a collapsed drain pipe, so that will have to be dug up and replaced or my French drains will be worthless. With all this rain, I am sure I will have to dig the trenches out again too. As always, I stay pretty busy.
