Rain dancing

Sunday it hit 90 and I think the humidity was right along with it. It was soooo bad that yours truly spent the day inside cleaning house, catching up on laundry and allowing the A/C to wring out some of the moisture. I was beginning to mildew.

I awoke Monday to the patter of rain on the rhody leaves outside my bedroom window. What a lovely sound. It pattered off and on all day - spits here and there. The occasional real shower. The temps were lower too. Couldn't do much outside because it spit, sputtered and sprayed all day. I knew we weren't supposed to get any more rain in the foreseeable future (out at least 8-9 days) so every drop on Monday would really count.

But the rains were light and intermittent and after 10 hours of angsting over the gauge, by 4:00 pm we'd only received .5". I was pooped, feeling I'd practically danced for 10 hours to get it. C'mon, you can do it! Just another 5 minutes. Think big. Think wet! Don't go! *whew*

The skies pretty much turned blue and the sun came out so I went inside for an early light supper. Involved with my sandwich it didn't really dawn on me that it was getting dark again. Suddenly zzzzzzap! BOOM! Then --- downpour!

It only lasted 10 minutes, but it added another .5" to the gauge. YAY!

All that angst-dancing had paid off. And right at the end, while it was still raining, the sun came out and - tada - a backyard rainbow.

For now the heat wave is broken. Today it is well overcast and only 62 right now giving the plants an opportunity to soak up yesterday's rain instead of it evaporating away. We're supposed to only get in the 70s until Friday with nighttime temps in the 50s. Again, YAY.

The weekend will return to the high 80s and steamy, but before then I'll be able to get a few things done over the next few days now that I (and the plants) won't be as limp as dishrags by noon.

Now if the mosquitoes *wave* would just *slap* let up for *ow!* for a while....