Finally!! (Okay....okay!!)

For the last couple of weeks, we have been literally baking in the heat - close to 100 every day, no rain...now add that to our "soil" of red clay...what do you get?  That's right - earth that is baked into the same thing as those terra cotta pots you see in the stores. 

So, this past Friday, what did we get?  A nice, gentle, soaking rain that gave everything the deep drink of water it so desperately needed - the sprinkler just does not do as good a job no matter how hard we try.  NOT!  Nope - Mother Nature is not done fooling with us yet!  As we were getting ready for our Friday night ritual of sitting around the fire with a few adult beverages, the skies got ominously dark...so dark in fact, that the chickens put themselves to bed at 7:15 PM?!?!  Then the winds picked up...the thunder started rolling....a few flashes of lightning lit up the dusky sky.  I quickly checked the radar and saw that we were under a severe thunderstorm warning and there was a big red cell headed our way.  Then, a really big thunderbolt struck relatively close - well, close in my vocabulary.  I told my husband, see ya and went inside to ride out the storm.

Then it started raining - YEAH!  Really hard - NO!  So hard that the gutters could not keep up and we had geysers blowing over the endcaps.  The pool - which we were thinking we would have to add water to as the water line was barely above the bottom of the skimmer hole - filled up quickly.  And since the earth was baked so hard, you guessed it!  The water just rushed over the front yard so that we had a river running through it.  Oi vey! 

Remember "moderation"???  "Happy medium"??  Apparently not.

After the storm, we resumed our normal activity and it was actually cool out.  You could almost hear the flowers sighing from the deep drink they were taking.  And the tree frogs had whet their whistle and started (not sure how to describe their sound - chirping + croaking) - choaking?

Saturday - hot and steamy!  Well of course - after all the rain the night before!!  Saturday evening - getting dinner ready and guess what?!  Another storm rolls in just as we are heating up the coals on the grill.  Since our camping trip got canceled, we decided to have our favorite camping dish for dinner.  Inside foil pouches, place one chicken breast, chop up some potatoes and onions, liberally season with salt, pepper, Italian Seasoning, Garlic Powder and Paprika.  Add a couple of pats of butter and a handful of ice cubes.  Seal them up (we usually do two layers of foil folded up opposite ways - like a cross; but I cut the foil pieces too small so we added a third layer and it worked a lot better!).  Place over coals to steam in the pouches for about 20 - 30 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken breasts.  When done, eat directly out of the pouches after adding some shredded cheese to melt on top.  Scrumptious!!

All in all, at least we got some precipitation.  Not exactly the way we wanted it - except on Sunday when we did skirt the main storms and received about an hour's worth of nice gentle, soaking rains.  I guess Mother Nature has a decidedly different sense of humor than I do.