Evening Storms

During the past week we have had some pretty major thunderstorms roll through in the evening. Each time they send out the warning for high winds and 2" hail, I worry about my garden. I have never seen 2" hail but in early June, Keene, which is just 10 miles north of here, got golf ball size hail. That's pretty big. That would be pretty devastating. Not just for me but for the local farmers who make their living on the land. Monday evening, right around dinner time (which I'm sure ruined a lot of cookouts) we got hit with a pretty major storm. It poured like it hasn't poured in a while. As is par for the course, our road flooded right in front of our house. There are drains on both sides of the road, but they are old and can't handle this kind of rain. One of my most favorite things to do, is watch the waves created by people who are crazy enough to try and drive through it.

Anytime we get heavy, drenching rains.. it comes along with flooding in our yard. The back yard floods, right under where our table sits. As long as we have owned our house there has been a table of some sort there, and it always floods in that same spot. The reason I don't move the table, is because it's the flattest spot out there that isn't smack out in the middle of the back yard. It's also under the shade of a gorgeous maple tree, which provides shade to the table and any meals that we wish to consume in the fresh air. It just works. We have talked about putting down interlocking teak squares and making a bit of a patio, but I think in light of the flooding, we might just make a platform for the grill to keep it out of the splashed up mud when it rains.  I don't know if it was the wind or the force of the rain that knocked over the chairs, but I had quite a bit of clean up to do on Tuesday.

Last night, as the rain poured down again, this time with some crazy thunder and lightning, I watched as gallons and gallons of water poured down off the corner end of our metal roof. Each time it pours, and I witness this occurrence, I think about getting a rain barrel.  All that water pours down, and could easily water my gardens for a week or more. The reason I don't have one  yet? I can't find one that I like, and I'm worried that the amount of water that comes down would overfill the barrel. I'd really like a tall wine barrel that I could just put a screen over the top of, but I haven't come across one yet. The ones I've looked at online seem cheaply made and are ugly and costly. So I wait, and watch all that water go to waste. It really is quite something to witness.