The End of Spring

/ cagedunn

Although it feels like the end of Winter, Spring it is. Rain, rain, more rain. This is the wettest year since we moved here (is it 17 years already?), and the weeds are ten feet tall (I might be exaggerating, but if you saw down the back fence, you’d know it for fact!). The water tanks are full, ready for summer (next week!). This is a rare event. Usually, by the end of spring, the tank water is all gone to keep the vegie (yes, this is how I spell vegie, meaning vegetable – there are no double gees in vegetable, therefore, there are no double gees in vegies; maybe I should just say veg? Okay.) garden alive.

There’s a rain gauge down the back near the citrus trees. I measure each rainfall event, and add the numbers to a book. This year, I had to change the gauge because the rainfall was too heavy for the standard measure. The new one measures up to 100ml. The last one measured up to 35ml. This is the first year that it overflowed. Substantially. My neighbour told me that the day it overflowed was the day he measured 47ml of rain.

November, in Adelaide, averages about 30ml. This year, I’ve measured 79ml, not counting the losses on the overflow day.

That’s a lot of rain.

And now there’s a jungle of weeds. Some I’ve never seen before. Some I’ve been fighting for 16 years. I used to win a few battles, but this year, the whole war is lost.

Although I’m enjoying the idea that the aquifers will fill, the rivers and creeks will flush, and birds and fish will do well out of the season, I’m a bit sick of being wet. How do people who live in wet areas (like Ireland) survive that damp state of being that never goes away?

Anyway. It’s still Spring for a few days, but Summer is close. And that means hot. I wonder what will happen to all those sappy green weeds when the true weather arrives?

Good compost, if I remove the seeds and flowers. That’s how I’m thinking of it (and someone else is doing the weeding while I orchestrate the work processes). More green for the worms – of which there are a huge abundance this year (I’ve even sold a handful here and there for a reasonable price – and not for chook food).

It’s not what usually happens, but I’m looking forward to Summer this year. I’m looking forward to being dry for a few days at a time.

Photo by Darius Krause on Pexels.com

Next week, I’m doing a preview of a new anthology: The Haunted Train: Creepy Tales from the Railways: Gothic Ghost and Horror Stories

It’s on presale now, for the low price, which reverts to the normal price after publication date. I have a story in this one, Blood Lake Train.

16 thoughts on “The End of Spring”

  1. I’m hearing you, Cage. We’ve had record rainfall for November and are looking forward to some sustained sunshine, especially to bring the tomatoes on. Of course by February I’ll be calling for a cool weather break. 😉

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  2. I know exactly what you mean, l was reading about the rainfall alone in Sydney. Suze’s daughter is in Adelaide and she was talking about the wind and that damn hurricane or tornado that took off their shed roof.

    I just need to get some water butts in place or scatter bins.

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    • We have 6kl of water tanks out the back and several 1k tanks scattered around – and they’re all full! Never happened before.
      At least we’re not in the same boat as NSW and Qld – they’re inundated to record levels.

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  3. Weird weather everywhere! I keep rainfall records too; have them going back to the early 1990s, and brood over them regularly. We had record rainfall last fall (your spring) and a multi-month drought this past summer.
    I hope you have a good spring and summer!

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  4. -rueful nod- You pinched my post. 😀 We’ve had nothing but rain, interspersed with moments of warmth, the whole spring too. Most years I’m out there during spring, burning off and mowing like crazy, but this year I had to bite the bullet and pay for a big, burly guy to come in and whipper snipper the place as the alpacas have been less than useless. I guess the grass was too high for them as well. Now I’m using the mower to take the weeds down that little bit further in the hope that they won’t have time to re-sprout before the hot weather arrives.
    I complain…a lot…but I can’t imagine how people further north are faring with constant flooding. 3 La Ninas is too much. 😦

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    • Oh, I like most of them, but constant days of rain, rain, rain and water flooding in the back door is too much. We’ve also lost friends who’d volunteered in the NSW floods. That sort of thing leaves behind a deep wariness.

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  6. How wonderful that you have worms in the soil. We had plenty in Virginia, but in this sandy soil in the plains of Texas we don’t have any. I can’t figure out if we’re supposed to. But I do know stickers like to grow here (sand burrs you may call them) more than grass!

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    • Yes, we have prickly things – burrs, double-gees, stickers, clovers, purple curse, bindii …
      As a kid, I’d run around barefoot, but not now.
      I believe there are earthworms everywhere, even Texas – provided there is enough for them to eat (organic), but there are two types of worm that have ‘invaded’ Texas: the hammerhead worm (which kills/eats earthworms), and the Strongyloides (a parasite often found near areas that flood or in-ground septic systems), so no bare feet.

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  7. All true, Cage. It’s been nuts over here, as well. Mowing on every day that it wasn’t too wet to do so, and many of those.

    A few dry days and the soil is hard – at least on the surface, while trees are still falling and the potholes still growing.

    Thank you (not so much) to the La Nina triplets.

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