Rain!!!

I have never liked rain. It makes it impossible to do anything productive. The sky is gray and dreary. It just makes for a depressing day. I never liked rain... that is until I moved to the deep south and started my little homestead. Now rain is a godsend. The heat here only lets up after a good, hard rain. My chickens don't look like they are going to have heat stroke at any moment. I can actually go a day or maybe even two (!) without spending an hour, minimum, watering my gardens and my plants don't wither up and die. I plant fruits, veggies and flowers that are heat tolerant and need much less water than typical plants do. I even plant everything in above ground beds so that only an isolated area needs to be watered (and fertilized) and mulch heavily with hay, but it gets so hot here that it doesn't matter. It just slows the process. No water for a day and they are goners. I don't even mind that I have to go out and do chores in the mud and come back inside soaking wet. It is better than the heat. We have had rain for three days straight at this point and, though it does get a bit old after a while, it is marvelous. I never thought, before I had animals and gardens of my own, how important rain is. The very grass under your feet withers up and dies without it. So, who cares if the lawn looks like sandlot? Well, I don't, except that now I have animals that eat the grass and I really count on it being there. I don't water my lawn, preferring to only use it in what is precious, so with no rain it just disappears. Rain this time of year, at least this much, is rare for this area. I am so grateful. Rain seems to reset everything. It is almost like natures way of telling everything to take a break from the stress and toil of the hard, hot summer, and then start over, feeling more refreshed and renewed. I find myself taking the long way through the yard to cool my feet in the puddles (yes, like most southerners, I have taken to wearing flip-flops rather than muck boots to work outside). I have been finding more and more things to put tin roofs on so I can enjoy the soothing sound of the drops hitting them when they fall. I never liked rain, except, now I find that I love it!