The photo to the left is our weather station monitor. If you look closely you’ll see it says January 6th, which is the date today, as I’m writing this post. It also says we have had 2.65 inches of rain this month, in the first six days! It also says it’s 66 degrees F at 2:59 pm. Another thing you might notice is that the barometric pressure is dropping, which is an indication of more rain to come. The little black monitor to the left is the temperature in the greenhouse. Yes, that’s a lot of rain this early in the month. The pictures below show you the result of so much rain.

We had 5 to 6 inches of standing water in our yard after the deluge. We have a lot of clay in our soil which prevents the water from soaking in. It’s a good thing we have rubber boots or we would be stranded in the house. Today is Saturday, and there is quite a bit more rain in the forecast for the coming Monday. But today, is a beautiful day. 66 degrees F, with a light breeze and 92 degrees in the greenhouse. This is the kind of January weather I can handle. The temperature in Minnesota where we used to live is 30 degrees today, which is actually not bad for them. But they can have it. I’m never planning to go back to Minnesota in the winter. Now I know that saying that, it could still happen. I’m just not planning to.

Nightmare Fuel

How’s this for nightmare fuel? These lovely creatures are Horsehair worms. I discovered them on the step of my backyard shed after the rainstorm. They are both about 10 inches long and they are parasites for insects such as grasshoppers and crickets. They are not harmful to humans or pets in any way but just watching them wiggle around gave me the creeps. I have never encountered them before, so this is a new creature to add to the list. Oh boy!

On a lighter note, we’ve been needing a coat rack near our front door and today we finally got it done. We found the cast iron hooks at a secondhand store in Needville, and the barnwood came from Mary and Jim’s place. It’s going to be very handy to have.

So, in two more days we can expect more rain, and probably more yard flooding. The whole neighborhood looked like our yard. The land here in the Gulf Coast is very flat with quite a bit of clay so there is little run off and the rain soaks into the ground very slowly. It’s still better than snow, which is what we would have were we in Minnesota, so there’s that. So Happy New Year to you all and we hope yours’s will be a good one, like we’re planning on ours being.