August showers bring...

Since the 23 of July, we've received 12 inches of rain at our house.  That much rain while in the midst of a drought is unusual.  Much needed, received with much gratitude, and enjoyed. 

Our yard consists primarily of Buffalo Grass.  During times of drought, it goes dormant and brown awaiting enough rain to trigger growth.  Then it greens up and takes off.  Personally, Buffalo is my favorite kind of grass.  It's soft underfoot (while green, when it's dormant, it tends to crunch underfoot.)  It's a fine bladed grass and is just a nice soft shade of green.  Plus, given enough time, it can squeeze out weeds and stickers on its own--without the need of chemicals.

 Rain also can bring a lot of water.  This creek runs to the north of our house.  During one of our rainstorms, we got 1.5 inches of rain, but those 10-20 miles from us received 5-7 inches.  All that water came downstream through our creek.  The highway leading to our house was closed for an hour or so as the water crossed over the bridge.  The shot below is after the water levels started to drop.  There are a lot of farmers/ranchers in our area who are now rebuilding fence and water gaps.

 I've appreciated the rain because it's caused the wildflowers to bloom.  This batch is in my yard.  Not sure what it is, but they sure are pretty!

A not so nice "benefit" of rain are these.  Stickers, or Goat Heads, or Texas Tacks.  They've been dormant until it rained.  And now they are popping up all over the place.  Kev and I can't go outside without spotting and pulling up a plant or 10.  The pretty little yellow flowers will turn into nasty stickers.  Any time we see a little yellow flower, we get down, find the base of the plant and pull those suckers out!  The plants then go into the trash because we don't need any stickers growing into new plants.  With all the rain, the ground is nice and soft, so they pull easily.  And yet, we can't walk anywhere outside without stopping to pull stickers.  And if you walk off and leave it, you might not spot it again until it's dropped lots of stickers.  Simple trips outside now aren't so simple or quick!

 And this stuff also grows.  It however doesn't go dormant during dry spells, but grows when nothing else will.  Bindweed...the bane of my existence!  I pull and pull and and it just comes back!  It's become a jungle in many spots now.  We've not been very diligent in pulling it.  Probably because we've been picking stickers.

But we'll put up with the weeds, and the flooding, because we love the rain.