Wednesday had possible storms in the forecast–both morning and evening. I was already rather grumpy because the predicted rainfall totals showed my farm getting between a quarter and a third of an inch.
However, at this point, since we are still in a moderate drought any rain is welcome. I was a bit surprised when we actually got a tenth of an inch in the morning. I was hoping this little extra might put the total for the day closer to half an inch.
I did my chores early in the afternoon, just in case we actually got some; however, the app on my phone was showing pretty much all of the rain missing me. Then the rains came. It sprinkled enough that it brought the goats up from pasture.
The wind and rain picked up. They built up and then began back building and we spent about two hours under a severe storm warning.
There was a tornado warning in there for a while. Actually, there were at least twelve confirmed tornadoes touching down in the state yesterday. This rotation was radar indicated, so I don’t think there was anything that touched down with this warning, thankfully.
When it was all said and done, we also ended up under a flash flood warning. Trust me, I did not flood. I live on the top of a hill. Thank heavens.
The next morning, I went out to assess the damage. The garden obviously had some wind.
There was obviously some rotation here too. I don’t know how else those tomatoes would be in three different directions. I do think everything up here will recover.
I think the only real damage was the loss of my tarp hut.
There was no way it could survive the weight of all that rain pooling in it.
The next problem was trying to figure out how much rain we got. My food pans only hold about four inches.
I didn’t get the water tubs filled yesterday. I figured they would be easier to dump and scrub the next day if I let the goats drink them out more, but I have no idea how much it was, and the trees would impact the level as well.
I finally decided the big tub where the goats like to nap would give me my best estimate.
According to this tub, we got about 5 1/2 inches of rain in the two hours of this severe storm.
This is all rain that soaked into the ground. You might have noticed that the barnyard wasn’t really muddy. It’s wet, but that rain all went into the ground. I can hardly wait to see next week’s drought monitor.
Teresa
Eden Hills 