# Well, there's your darn rain, SP! :-)



## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

So, after the longest drought recently (in some places around here, the longest in history) we break it with 3 days of tornadoes and thunderstorms.

How many of those catfish are still alive, anyway?

Oy vey, this is some weird weather!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

indeed! we got a couple of inches here last night with more to come late tonight and into tomorrow morning. looks like we may be finally turning the corner on the drought. my hope is that we'll still get the normal tree pollen flow that starts up about mid winter here.

most of the catfish became fodder for the raccoon and fox, as well as the eagles, eagrots, herons, and buzzards. there were still about a dozen or so alive yesterday morning hanging on in the small puddle than remained.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Dig a deeper pond!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Fusion_power said:


> Dig a deeper pond!


not much soil depth at the brow dar, we dug down to solid rock in places. i am at about 15' at full pool on the deep side. the loamy soil, cracks in the rocks, and the fact that i have no spring feed and depend on run off make it challenging to have a pond right there. this is the first year it has gone catastrophically dry. the bees stopped using it as a water source over 2 months ago, i'm assuming because the water quality suffered with the fish crowded in there.


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## tpope (Mar 1, 2015)

A pond liner would help seal the cracks and seeps.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

tpope said:


> A pond liner would help seal the cracks and seeps.


true, i've been talking to folks about the various options and have that on my 'list'. 

we have received close to 5" of rain over the past 3 days, which was about a week late for most of the catfish, but just that much has replenished the pond very nicely.

i think i still have about a dozen 'survivors' in there.


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## becsbeehive (Oct 29, 2016)

hate it when it pours randomly here


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

the drought monitor updated on 01/17/2017 and now has us designated under 'D2' or 'severe drought', downgraded from 'D4' or 'exceptional drought', with the seasonal outlook calling for drought conditions remaining but improving.

the catfish pond has gone from being virtually dried up to about 1/3 replenished. more heavy rain is forecast for this weekend.


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## RBRamsey (Mar 1, 2015)

I feel your pain... It has been nice to see the rain over the several weeks around here. Our well went nearly dry. We could pump only about 50 gallons per day before we were sucking air. We had to haul water to the farm for us and livestock. 

I called a well driller in early November, and he told me it would at least mid January before he could come, and the farm is at the same altitude as the county water tank. I would have to suck water from the county water mains to get here. I finally discovered a down side to living out in sticks. 

This has been the worst drought I've been through. It has been about 3 months of little to no water in the well.

I do have a new fondness for rain. When I went outside this morning, I could see about 3" water in the feed bowls from last nights rain. Let it rain.


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## diymom (Apr 8, 2016)

Get some rain barrels now.
In California we have had a long running drought too, we have been on restrictions and whatnot for two years. For the last 2 months we have had so much rain, we haven't gone a week without rainfall. I just got rain barrels to hook up to gutters we would have had installed by now had it not been raining so often, and they filled up to overflowing just with two feet of runoff from the roof and one storm.
I am shocked how much rain can be harvested and how fast. It definitely makes it a no brainer to save some however you can. Especially in a dry region.
Try to save some.
It's great you all are getting rain too!


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## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

I have 2 55 gallon barrels in the little side garden beside the kitchen. This side of the house is not even the big roof (which is over the bedrooms)... only the garage and kitchen.

When it rains *really* hard... just pouring, both of those barrels can fill completely in 5 minutes. In a normal kind of rain, they fill in an hour. So, that's 110, from the smallest part of my roof, without even trying. So, yes, during a storm there are just thousands of gallons pouring off the roof.

I'm in the same drought as SP (about 200 miles to his East). This is the first year I've ever run both barrels dry.

So, yep, if I lived in CA I would have 10 of these things around my house. 

Let's start a pool! I've got a dollar on April 19th for SP's catfish pond to be "full". that's a little early, but I'm an optimist, and I want other folk to have a chance to win. 

To steer this back on target: of my 3 hives the 2 Italians were strongest before the drought, with the Carniolans limping along (by comparison). Now, both Italian hives are dead, but the Carnis are still humming, bring in pollen. Checked the other day, and I still have the original marked queen from last year's package. How about that? She's a calm little trooper... she was already in battle mode before the drought hit. I'm rebuilding this year from her.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

The rain we are getting now will pump nectar for the spring flow. I like the rain, but personally could use a couple of dry days to plant some more pecan trees.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

AvatarDad said:


> ...the Carnis are still humming, bring in pollen. Checked the other day, and I still have the original marked queen from last year's package. How about that? She's a calm little trooper... she was already in battle mode before the drought hit. I'm rebuilding this year from her.


sounds promising avatardad!

we usually get enough rain through the winter months to bring the pond up to full pool and spill over for a few weeks and i agree we'll likely get there before april.

to make up for the last year's deficit and get us off of the drought monitor will take some flooding rain conditions, but as dar suggests we are already back into a good enough pattern to be optimistic for a good spring flow.

the biggest threat now would be a late hard freeze.


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