I Found Out What Rain Was

I made a comment Saturday night over on Al's blog, The Bayfield Bunch, "rain??? rain??? what's that?" ... well starting about 12:30am local time last night I found out really quick what rain was, plus loud thunder, bright lightning and high winds. Even Stella stood up from sleeping to check to see if everything was okay.

I was glad to see it happen. All the storms forecasted in previous weeks were all north of us. My front yard was getting brown plus I knew it would cool those temperatures we had lived with the past week or two. It looks like one project will be moved up on my 'to do' list. Dig up the old drainage system I installed years ago and re-install something new since this is consistently having standing water after heavy rains.

I could feel the rain lightly falling on me as I tried to get some pictures after the storms this morning. Sadie didn't believe me when I told her it was still raining and we could not go for the morning walk yet. She had to find out for herself and once she did, she moved to the carport under cover, while I risked getting wet taking photos.

My pictures this morning are a mix from my Nikon D3200 and my iPhone 6s, see if you can tell the difference.

I slept through all of the storms that continued throughout the night. Based on the tweets from my local Utility Company this morning, power is out in a lot of places except mine. There are reports of a lot of trees that were blown down. Luckily I didn't hear any of those scary "cracking" noises you hear before a tree falls. Yet the storms cleared out some of the dead limbs on my Mahogany trees in back.

At this point in time as Sadie and I walked around the backyard checking for any damages, she still thought there might be an outside chance for a walk this morning. Wunderground and Intellicast are showing the rain should stop around 1pm ... I'll put on my boots made for hiking in wet fields and we will take off on a walk after their lunchtime kibble.

Since in the past I have always had my potted flowers destroyed by high winds and thunderstorms, I put my two pots of Geraniums and Elfins inside the carport away from the blowing rain that would take place later on, just as I predicted. Maybe I should apply for one of those tv weatherperson positions since I seem to be more accurate.

No damage this morning from the blowing rain last night. I think I see in that top picture a little improvement from the way the flowers looked when I potted them yesterday afternoon.

As I stepped outside into the light rain to check on the Azaleas that I had sitting in possible locations, two out of four of them had blown over. It was good I moved the flowers into the carport when I did last night before the storms started.

See those steps that are never used except by a lost stranger every year or so? I plan to keep those open with a stone walkway leading to them. I am trying to decide whether to put the walkway in front or in back of the Azaleas. I'm thinking in front of them will be the best and I'll move the Azalea a little closer to the house. I have decided to move that one in the picture over to just right of the small kitchen window. New positions are pictured below.

After more reading on the internet this morning about Azaleas plus what Ethan told me at the landscaping biz ... their root system will be very shallow, only a foot deep. They will grow as large as I let them. Since I bought the "hot shots", they will bloom into my favorite color ... or one of my favorite colors ... red.

So I started looking at the front of my bare house again and came up with a different idea about placement this morning. I moved the Azaleas to where I think will be their final resting place. The forth one you can barely see is right in front of the Directv dish bracket, which will grow enough to hide that bracket.

One reason I don't like Sycamore trees ... even after cleaning out my gutters of their bark just last week, my front gutter plugged up again last night by their bark and possible tree branches ... you can see where the rain ran over the gutter and moved the mulch around.

While Stella scratched, Sadie stood listening to me mumble plant ideas out loud to myself as I took photos. I have two Yellow Daylilies and I have been told not only do they have a deep root system but you can't get rid of them once you plant them. They keep coming back.

So I came up for an idea about them.

I will plant one to the left of the porch in the corner. I'll keep it cut back so it does not take over the porch and maybe just a little above the bottom of my low living room window.

The other one I am going to plant in front of the pole that holds my HughesGen5 satellite dish for my internet. I'll let it grow somewhat out of control where it will add some bright yellow to the corner of the house and hopefully grow tall enough to hide most of the pole the dish sits on.

With deep root system it can enjoy going as deep as it wants and wrap around the 3' feet of concrete the dish installer used when setting the pole in the ground.

Or I could trade the yellow Daylily by the porch with the Azalea that is on the south corner of the house ... that way both yellow flowers would be 'bookends' with the reds between them.

In between these 6 different plants I'll fill in with Hostas and other annuals. At the same time I'll continue to learn more about this landscaping stuff and add things as I get ideas. Feel free to comment or send me emails on my idea or any new ideas on your own. I have almost ruled out any kind of bushes or shrubs.

For those readers that receive my blog by email, I apologize for all the spelling errors I did not catch. I've corrected them after seeing what was sent out automatically.

It's 20° cooler this morning here in the wet 'tropics' of Southern Indiana.