Posted on 08/24/2008 4:37:35 AM PDT by Clive
Precipitation exasperation
Enough with the stinking showers already ... and has anyone seen the darn meteorologist?
Is it summer yet? Or did I miss it back in April?
I know it's August, but here comes yet another rainy day. What a surprise.
Oh sure, the sun is shining as I write, but it's early yet and the grey clouds are already starting to pile up on the western horizon.
Our house guests from British Columbia are puzzled. When they left home, it was hot and sunny when it should have been rainy and awful. Now here they are in what's supposed to be sunny southern Ontario and the rain just keeps on coming.
It's rained so much, our driveway had to be graded, regravelled and compacted. Cost $300-plus. But we were lucky. Some people have had their driveways wash out onto the road and others have deep trenches carved into them, making them treacherous.
It's rained so much my tomatoes are drowning, my boots are mud covered and my car looks as though it's been off-roading lately. It hasn't.
The other day, we decided to take our guests to a local tourist attraction -- Lang Century Village, near Peterborough. The rain came pelting down when we were halfway there and continued, accompanied by thunder, throughout the visit. A dozen or so other people, huddled under umbrellas, slogged around the muddy roads. After all, you have to do something with guests, no matter how much it rains.
And speaking of thunder, it happens daily and our beagle is terrified of it. We've had a few sleepless nights.
The upside is the grass is green, my rain barrel is overflowing and we haven't needed air conditioning. The downside is the grass grows so fast it has to be mowed twice as often. The weeds, of course, are growing like ... well... weeds.
And then there are the bats. I'm not sure I can blame them on the bad weather but I will anyway as they seem to go together. I gather they're migrating right now and for a while there, they were stopping over at our house every single night. A real estate agent friend says we're the fourth family to mention a bat problem this summer.
GOING BATTY
The first couple of times, we treated it as an accident. My husband would get up, grab the broom or the tennis racket and chase the little thing around, while I and our daughter cowered in the bathroom.
But it went on night after night. We took to shutting our cats in the basement at bedtime. In the morning there would be a little corpse lying at the bottom of the stairs amid clumps of cat hair. One morning there were two. The cats didn't even bother eating them after awhile.
It took awhile, but we found a tiny opening behind the electrical panel and plugged it. We've been bat free for nearly a week.
No sooner did we solve one crisis than another appeared -- our well water test showed contamination, prompting a round of frantic calls to the health unit and large purchases of bottled water. Again, we're not sure we can blame it on the rain, but we can try.
So all in all, I've had just about enough. Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.
Has anybody seen Dave Phillips lately? Canada's best known weatherman recently claimed we could still have a hot and sunny August. But he's been wrong before. In fact, I can't remember the last time he was right.
And of course there's that other old saying: It never rains but it pours. And it's pouring right now.
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Sigh, now I know where our rain has been!
It’s been pretty dry here since early July. We had some rain the other day and a few sprinkles last night but that’s it.
FReeper in Florida
This has been the wettest August this Texan has seen. At least the weeds are green in my lawn.
It’s alL right. In another couple of months it will be snowing instead.
Whazzat? ;-)
Why do people consider bats a "problem"? Bats are good. They eat bugs. They spread seeds.
You really ought to get out of your tent more often. :)
I always use a good anti-precipitant after a shower. :-)
Bats in the yard are wonderful. Bats in the house are trouble.
Could be worse, Ms. Woodcock, You could be living in Florida.
Now that's a lotta precip :(
The carry rabies. They bite your cat or dog. Your pet suffers horribly. Your pet dies. They bite you, you suffer horribly, then YOU die.
We have a bat problem here, too. Of course, the Brown Bats are ‘protected’ so we’re not allowed to touch them. They’re to have free reign in our attic, ruin our roofing, and whenever they’re flying around our heads in the living room in the evening while we sit and watch TV, we’re to ENJOY them because they’re GOOD for the planet, LOL!
They are vermin with wings, and they outnumber humans by about a thousand to one on the planet. The job of pollination and mosquito control will just have to be handled with a few less from my house. :)
Our corn crop needs rain in the worst way. Rain has been “spitting” on us for a week, but now it’s cool and clear again with no real rain in sight for a while.
The soybeans can handle drought, but corn doesn’t like it.
This is three summers running with cool, wet springs, then drought in the summer months.
But, as someone else said, the snow (100+” last year!) will be here soon enough! ;)
Ummm... I have never heard of a bat biting a pet. Unless some cat tried to catch it. They do not all carry rabies. "Bats can get the rabies virus, but the incidence of bats and rabies is very low, usually only about one half of one percent of bats tested, test positive for the virus."
People are afraid of bats for no good reason.
My wife hated bats till my kindergarten son did a project on them. Now she likes them. Do some research first before condemning them.
Here in northern new hampshire, the rains have been relentless. I wouldn’t mind so much, but I am building a new home on a mountain and trying to keep my driveway graded and passable has been an almost full-time job. I have suspended building my home, and have been concentrating on road improvements to handle the 2 hour/6 inch rain storms that we have been getting every two days.
Hey, I get out. We just don't have any of that precip-whatever stuff here. Unless you count sand. ;-)
I use a towel. ;-)
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