Yesterday's perfect storm

Perfect for CMO anyway. Three miles south didn't get anything. Usually a monsoon fills everything and washes bad, plus ten years' worth of water goes away down the arroyo. Debris washes into the tanks, etc. But yesterday's rain was a long soaking rain that ran just enough to almost fill the big tank, with no negative effects. (Reflection is clouds.)

 

Of course, that's why I got stuck. If it had been a monsoonal gully washer the upper dirt tank would have filled and I could have seen that from a ways back. No reason to go close. Sometimes it fills when I hardly get anything here and the ground nearby is still firm. The runoff comes from the east. So when it was only half full, like yesterday, it didn't occur to me that the ground would be saturated, but the long soaking rain did the deed.

Tank in background

After I finished repairing the 3" line, which took me most of the morning, I took the rest of the day off.  Rested and watched dragonflies. A rare luxury when I don't need to be watering.

I'm sure to get some Mexican Amberwings in a month or two. I'll definitely post it online because I know quite a few dragonfly chasers who want that species in Texas. I'm the only person who's documented it in Texas, so I'll be on top of that.

I thought having wet ground and water everywhere, it would be cooler today, but got up to 104° anyway. That's really unusual. And scary. We need relief from this heat.