I have waves in my backyard

The good news is that the drought is officially over with water tables back to normal. The bad news is, we got it all at once. It has been raining all week, it seems. And if not raining, threatening to rain. Every night, my weather radio blares tornado watches, hail warnings, thunderstorm warnings. We have the flash flood alert memorized.

The ground is saturated. Today, we planted our new trees. We filled in the soil, stamped it down and commenced saturating the soil with water. It took all of five seconds to make a puddle at the base of the tree that sat there for the rest of the day. There was nowhere for the water to go.

And tonight it rained. Is raining. Rain is pounding the windows and running off the roof in streams. But there is nowhere for all the water to go, so it is forming a river in our backyard.


That mat is actually completely underwater. When my husband took this picture, we had at least an inch of water on our patio. The bird garden is completely submerged. The water in the side yard has formed a small river lapping at the front of the shed. Another inch and it may be coming in our back door. And the forecast?

Thursday: A dangerous thunderstorm; storms can bring downpours, large hail, damaging winds, and a tornado

Friday: A couple of showers and a heavy thunderstorm in the morning; otherwise, times of clouds and sun

Saturday: Mostly cloudy with a couple of thunderstorms; breezy and mild

Sunday: Thunderstorms in the evening; otherwise, cloudy and breezy

In fact, next Friday is the first day with no predicted rain.

___________

This morning, I walked out to assess the damage. The trees and garden stand in a puddle of thick mud. My squash and beans are no longer submerged, but the leaves were pushed under the mud. I gently lifted the ones I could reach, but I sank to my ankles in the mud near the rows of squash. I hope our new trees survive.