Let us do the Dance of Joy!

Finally—the deluge. Oh, we had measurable precipitation Saturday morning, but just barely (0.1”). It accomplished little except for creating intolerable humidity as the temperatures soared to the upper 90’s. “Like air,” to quote Bailey White, “that has already been breathed.” But we were grateful for the rain nevertheless and dared to hope that it had broken the seal on the drought. It seemed it hadn’t, as one dry, hot day followed another. This afternoon, we got 0.3” of rain before I got home and more since then. Just now (7:45 p.m.) we had a downpour of serious proportions. Terry had forewarned me that it was coming, so I put the girls to bed early. I asked Terry what he was going to do with himself tomorrow when he didn’t have to spend 4 hours watering. He hopes that the ground will be soft enough that he can plant the large number of trees that have outgrown their pots. The drought isn’t over, but maybe we’re into a more normal weather pattern. We can dream.

Yesterday, Mom, Dad, and I made the water haul to the wildflowers about 9:00, when the heat was already bad enough to give me a headache. On the way back, I came quite close to two female turkeys with at least 8 chicks. Chicks are hard to count when they are moving in the tall grass. I didn’t have my camera, and running for it was out of the question. Even if I hadn’t been in danger of heat stroke, the turkeys were not very likely to wait for me to get back. I was delighted to see the family (or one very much like it) reappear this afternoon shortly after I started cooking supper. I asked Terry to watch the burgers and dashed upstairs to get my camera. So here you go: turkeys with chicks. They are really quite beautiful birds.

Turkey families (two hens and chicks) out for a walk

I’m off for the north woods on Friday. I’m not thinking I’ll post again in July (where has the summer gone?), but hopefully I’ll have some awesome wilderness shots when I get back!
 p.s from Thursday morning: We got somewhere between 2.2" (the small colorless rain gauge) and 3" (the yellow gauge). Whee!