It's hard to pick the more welcome sight this week. The rain that came in sheets or the neighbors dancing in their once parched now swamped garden.
This has been a tough season for gardens considering it hasn't rained since...well, I'm not sure how long it's been since it rained. I remember a fluke rainy morning in July. Meat and Tater managed to get some peppers, but their beans bombed and their tomatoes got about cherry sized.
Meat and I have cussed and discussed this drought all summer. We remember a couple of good ones in the 90s and 00s, but this might be the worst in our collective century of memories.
Things really dried up here last winter. And it stayed that way all the way through spring. By summer, dry was just baked in. For the first time in 7 years, none of the ten outdoor Levitt AMP Music Series shows between May and July was threatened by wet weather. That's just one example.
For those of you who like numbers, according to the University of Kentucky Ag Weather web site, the eastern Kentucky region is just under 8 inches short of normal precipitation for the last 360 days and our average temperature is 3 degrees above. Dryer and hotter means no 'maters in September!
"Numbers are fine for eggheads like you SJ," Meat scolded me, "but all I know is every week I had to dig deeper for worms. In a normal summer, you can just pull them right out of the garden. Not this year."
"Well all I know," turning it back on Meat, "is there's not been enough water in the river for a decent float through the gorge since May. That's never happened as long as I've been kayaking."
"All I know," interjected Tater, "is if you put all you two know together it wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. Now shut up and dance!"
I'm sure the rest of the neighborhood appreciated the three of us doing the twist in Wednesday afternoon's downpour. I couldn't help myself. It looked like they were having so much fun I had to join them.
Even though my dance card was short thanks to too many chemo and cokes, the lovebirds kept it going until the band at their imaginary sock-hop took a smoke break. They boogied over every muddy inch of their barely there garden, stomping anything left growing back into the ground with the worms.
They joined me on their back porch, dripping and laughing about things only Meat and Tater would think to laugh about. "Don't hog the towel Uncle Fester, Tater's soak n' wet."
"Don't call him that, you jerk! You hog the towel all you want, SJ." She slipped into the back door and returned in a couple of beats, clothes still dripping but a towel wrapped around her head. She tossed one to Meat, looking at me.
"How are you feeling SJ? Holding up?"
"Holding up? I'm dancing in the rain Tater, I can't be any better!"