Tomorrow's the day

At 5 this morning it started to thunder and sprinkle. Checking the radar online I saw that the oasis was in the path of a big storm. I grabbed a flashlight and mixed some patching compound and got into the tank. But the leaks were still running and I couldn't do a thing about it. So I decided to go to town and let come what may. The rain was pounding down by then and I barely made it out to the highway.

My sister, a mile north of the oasis, got half an inch, and neighbors three miles to the south got well over an inch. So this afternoon I came back down to face the situation. I figured I'd at least need to redo the feeders.  I got a little over half an inch, but if it had come down faster it could have flashed. As it was, it all soaked into the ground. That's good.

So many flowers are blooming that the bees ignored the feeders. Here is the best my Senna wislizeni has ever looked. I'm just so amazed at how things can be so struggling and half dead after four months of record heat and no rain, and then a short time later be all lush and gorgeous, like nothing happened.

And I was excited to get a couple of halfway decent shots of an ovipositing (depositing eggs) female Eastern Amberwing. Hard for me to do; they move so fast. The background is rather busy, but I didn't have time to get the focus right while it was in constant motion. In hindsight, I think if I had gotten down to water level it would have worked better, but it all happened so fast. This is one of the best amberwing ovipositing shots I've taken so far.

And I'm really burned out on Common Green Darners. This is the most I've ever seen in one place.

Tomorrow early I'm going to make one last attempt at patching the last few leaks. Then I'm going to start filling the tank, leaking or not. Can't postpone it any longer or I won't have enough water to fill it. If the leakage is reduced from 2 inches per day to 1 inch per day, I can live with that.