This has been one of the driest summers I can remember. We had a brief rainy spell in July, but the dry weather of early summer has returned and doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to leave.
The gardens are about done in this time of the year, but I had high hopes for the second planting of beans and for the fall vegetables we planted. The lack of rain is really hurting them. We’ve watered, but water from a well never works like rain from the heavens.
I quick look back through the archives showed I was complaining about dry weather in 2012 when I wrote:
“We desperately need rain and I know folks down south have had more rain than they need makes me wish we could swap out somehow. We’ve been watering the garden here at our house every evening, but the big garden we share with Pap and Granny is too big to water and it’s about burnt slap up. Granny thinks it’ll rain next week and the big garden will be ok. I hope she’s right. Charles Fletcher let me know it was 105 at 3:30pm in Cleveland TN yesterday.”
I was also complaining back in 2016 when I wrote:
“While people in Louisiana have had way too much rain, we’ve barely had any over the last month. The weather folks have forecast rain for the last two weeks but this summer’s wet weather has been choosy about where it falls.
Thursday afternoon it fell a flood while I was at work. We had an outside gig to play that evening so I thought well that figures when it finally rains its on the day I don’t want to get wet. I need not have worried. Not a drop fell in Andrews where we played and not a drop fell in Brasstown either. I reckon all the rain decided to stay in between the two.
A week ago Steve told me the same story. He was working in Bellview, which is a community or two away from Brasstown. Steve said it rained so hard the ditches filled with water and ran over into the road. As he finished up and headed for home he quickly drove out of the spot of heavy rain to dry roads and dusty ditches.
One day this week a girl I work with swore it was raining on one end of her car but not the other.
This dry summer of 2024 has been different than 2016, I don’t think the rain is missing us it’s just plain disappeared.
A quick look at a NC state drought map shows we are not in a true drought but are abnormally dry.
I hope our typical weather soon returns, but even if it does it likely won’t help this year’s garden.
Last night’s video: Zucchini Lime Coconut Cake – So Good!
Tipper
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Very helpful to have a journal. I wish I could be more diligent about it.
Maybe it will rain a lot in the fall.
Last night it poured buckets for about 15 minutes just south of Blairsville then quit. It was just enough to perk up the droops on the hydrangeas. This afternoon we had a sprinkle and a lot of thunder. That’s it.
Drought has been the norm in much of Texas for the last decade but lately we’ve been getting showers that drop anywhere from a quarter inch to an inch and a quarter. I hope that’s a sign of the drought being broken here as it has elsewhere in the Western US.
Here in southeastern Ohio we are under extreme drought conditions. We’ve had thunder and lightning but only a few drops of rain. Gardens and crops have shriveled up to nothing. Last two days and today temps in the upper 90s! Folks around here that buy hay for horses and livestock are desperate to find some. Very sad indeed. Rain predicted for this weekend-sure hope it comes.
as I have told you a few times recently I have not had rain at my place either–but I keep praying and hoping the forecast made for the weekend really comes to fruition and I will finaly get rain—so many people are suffering all across the country this summer but it just dawned on me how back in the day it was so dry for so long that many people’s wells dried up….so we can be thankful that that’s not an issue (at least as far as I know) and here where I live the hot weather has not caused issues with city water lines or the source of the city water……in last night’s video you appeared to be enjoying that cake too much to talk lol (made my mouth water for a piece)
It has indeed been a very dry summer. Like many other folks, it seems that I live in a pocket that often misses the rain. More than once this year it has rained all around us and we ended up getting nothing.
One of the things that I can’t help but notice as I read back through Tipper’s and others posts is the colorful expressions they we as people of the south so often use that must sound strange to others who aren’t from the south or from Appalachia. Expressions like “burnt slap up” or “it fell a flood” or a “a good many years” seem as natural and normal to me as the air I breathe. But I know there must be others to whom they sound very strange.
The old folks called it ‘providence’. If you got rain or didn’t it was what God felt was needed and He provided. He always provides all we need and most days more than we need. You’re right about the rain benefit for the gardens. There is nitrogen in rain especially if there is lightning included. The forecast for our area predicts rain for several days next week. I believe your friend’s story of the rain on one end of her car but not the other. I’ve seen it rain in the front yard and not in the back and vice versa. I’ve seen it rain so hard on one side of a river that muddy water ran down the banks while I was fishing on the other side and watching huge drops hitting the water half way across. Not a drop on my side.
Air is 78% nitrogen.
i remember it was pretty dry in 2012, the first summer i stayed up there. i remember all the dust covering the leaves at the sides of the road leading in to our place on rivercane…
My granddaughter plans to spend the day with me and wants to go play in the creek. It just occurred to me that there might not be any water to play in. At least we can check out the papaws along the creek bed while searching for water. It’s been close to 100 degrees all week but rain and cooler weather will arrive tomorrow.
Same here, Tipper and Randy. Not sure I’ll even try to have any fall garden. Don’t care to plant and then water just to keep them alive. Running out of time to have anything make as well. Seems to me having a garden gets harder each year; more work, less production and more problems. I am still picking field peas but that’s all. I’m amazed at them. They show little sign of drought and are still blooming and making new pods. And every time I pick them I get more than I thought was there. I’m thankful for that. And somebody somewhere for good reasons of their own is thankful for dry weather.
We are pretty dry here in Morristown TN. I remember some pretty dry and hot summers. I think this summer is a different dry weather with a very few storms. I even notice that the Farmers Market is getting very low on supple they are going good through the whole month of September. It don’tlook like they will be around long. Yesterday we stopped by the farmers market to get tomatoes. My Cherokee purple has not done good at all. But hot pepper plant is doing well. I didn’t put out a garden this year. Been so busy. We have had one death after another. Seems like we have had one is every month. My Dad in Jan. My sister in laws Mom. A wonderful lady at our church in February. A cousin in February. Uncle Tommy in June and Aunt Lois last month. Not counting more friends gone on.
It’s pretty dog gone dry. But I can’t complain God sure has been good to us. when we start counting our blessings we are doing pretty. I enjoy watching YouTube of you & Matt, your Mom and the girls. And enjoy Paul’s singing and the girls. You guys take care. The Covid is going around here! Love you guys and God Bless you all!
It’s awful dry here on the Cumberland Plateau too. I hope the Lord sends all of us some much needed rain soon.
Michigan’s dry season is June through August, and this year was dry but not horribly so. Our grass for the most part remained green and with few days where burning was disallowed–mostly for tourist campers and hikers in forests. Our wet seasons are fall and winter, hence all the mud and snow. Much of my family living in the Denver area has been under wildfire smoke all summer. Terrifying stuff for nearly two decades out there in the West.
The drought definitely was in place here in southern Virginia. Between it and the deer our garden was destroyed this year. The bushes, grass, and trees were affected as well as our grapes, apple, peach and pear trees. We have had rain for the last few weeks, and we had a downpour last night, but the drought effects are still evident. We live in the country and have a well. My husband and I were concerned that it would be affected but since it was just him and me it was fine. I grew up with a well and there were times in the summer when our family had to conserve water. We have two small fountains that we’ve kept going for a few hours during the day all summer for the birds and other animals.
So sorry this is happening. We laid soaker hoses throughout our garden and put them on a timer. ait sure isn’t the same as rain, but it helps.
I’ve seen several times when it rained on one side of the house and not on the other but never anything as small as a car. There has to be a dividing line somewhere though and, if you think about it, if you are standing on it you might get rain on one shoulder while the other remains dry.
Really dry here in Choestoe. I remember one about 20 or so years ago that was this bad or worse. Right after I moved back here. I took a family member to Gainesville to see a doctor and Lake Lanier was the lowest I ever saw it. It killed most of my forsythia along the road in front of my house.
Hoping and praying you folks get the rain you need.
Randy, prayers on the way for your sister.
We’ve been real dry up here as well but on Wednesday afternoon we had a storm roll up fast and furious. We got a good drenching from that and more lightning than I’ve seen in a while. My husband’s family is in grant county ky just a bit south of us and their mayor put out a burn ban yesterday because it’s so hot and dry. I guess the deluge of Wednesday passed them by. Makes me gives thanks to live in a time where we can run to the store, and for the hard working people who made life this way for us. Their lives depended on those gardens.
Tipper
I would love to buy your cookbook! How can I purchase one and how much do they cost?
Thanks
Joanna
Joanna-You can find a copy at this link: https://blindpigandtheacorn.etsy.com/listing/1467868257/celebrating-southern-appalachian-food They are $23.99 plus tax and shipping 🙂 Thank you!
We’re in a pretty dry spell here where we live at in Indiana. Our creek behind our house has dried up and that is pretty unusual. Most of the time it still runs year round. I’ve had to water our garden a few times this summer to keep it going. Now I just water those plants, peppers, potatoes, beets, radishes, to keep them going. The tomatoes and beans are pretty much done and my zucchini and yellow squash are barely hanging on. Fall will bring back the rains, or at least that is what I hope!
I would not say this summer is the driest summer, but it has been very dry and hot. In the last 20 years the large creek on my property has stopped flowing twice, my Mother lived her entire life here (86 years) and said the first time this happened was the first time she could remember the creek not flowing, it only had “potholes” of water. I have said this many times about my area, it seems like we are the hole in the doughnut when it comes to summertime thunderstorms. My father in law would tell me “count your blessings, we may not be getting the rain, but we are also not having the storm damage other areas are having.” Back in my younger years, I don’t remember the summers being as hot and dry for extended periods like they have been in the last 20 years. We did get a thunderstorm around 4 o’clock yesterday and after this week cooler “fall like” weather and a better chance of rain predicted for next 7 days.
Please pray for my sister, her health has been bad for a good many years, and now she is having some major problems that may cause her to be put in a health care home. She never married.
Randy-I will pray for her.
Did you see, hear or hear about the meteorite that was seen in Boone, NC and Travelers Rest, SC around 1:00 AM?
99% of the state of West Virginia is in drought conditions with 1% being in extremely dry condition. The county I live in is in extreme drought conditions as of yesterday. I don’t remember ever seeing our yard look so pitiful. I tell my husband it looks like a desert. Every day it seems that more and more of it is dying. The local rivers have all dried up. You can walk across any of them and step on rocks without getting your feet wet. Where we usually see swift water and rapids, there are only slow moving tiny streams with dry rocks all around. The leaves on some of our trees are turning early and falling to the ground like it was October. It’s so bad I think we may actually have to dig up and replant grass this spring. If we get lots of snow, we may be wading through mud all winter where lush, green grass once grew. When I was young, we had a well. It was good water, but in the summer it would get low. To make sure we had well water for drinking and cooking, we caught rain water for other things; and sometimes, we had to go to a local creek and get barrels of water to wash our clothes and ourselves. I have no idea what people with wells are doing this year— with barely any rain, and dried-up river beds. As I write this, I walked out on the porch and realized we actually got some rain during the night. It is gonna have to rain a lot to fill the rivers again. I pray everyone in WV and everywhere gets the rain we desperately need soon. Take care everyone.
it should start to rain, today and for the next few days, God bless you