Being stupid, we started putting out snacks for an invading raccoon (he was so cute!). Our wonderful, placcid neighbor went berserk when he found out what we were doing. The raccoons had been on his roof tearing off tiles to get into his attic. Fortunately, for us, our friendly raccoon got run over in the road..... I hope you are getting rain? We are. First, good rains since last October. Mountain lion tracks in the dry creek bed.
Since last October we have had 2 measurable rains. Last October we had a 1” rain and about a month ago we had between 1.5-1.9” rain. That is all we have had for almost a year. Our average annual rainfall is about 25” per year. So we are at about 10% of our normal rainfall.
This is the worst drought seen by any living human in Texas. It may have had a comparable in 1895, but counties do not have good records that far back. There are state rainfall records back to 1895, but I am not sure where they measured those. (Texas is a big state, hee hee hee)
I put out a lot of fruit trees; blackberry, blueberry and strawberry plants this year. It has been a constant struggle to water enough to keep them alive. I lost 9 of the 29 fruit trees that I planted to the extreme heat, dry wind and sun exposure. I have a large garden too, had to water that every other day during hottest of the summer. But most of the plants are doing well. Only one of the blueberry plants is still alive, but they are really not suited for this area.
I am still getting a lot of okra, squash, cucumbers and some black-eyed peas. I think this cooler weather is going to allow my tomatoes and jalapeno peppers to finally set fruit.