Summer Rain, Rain, Rain

This NWS graphic says it all. We’re in the purple area east of Cincinnati. (Click to enlarge.)

It has been a rainy summer, but I didn’t realize just how rainy until I looked at the National Weather Service site this morning. In a 33-day period from June 21 to July 24, our little corner of Ohio got some 12 inches of rain. That’s about 250% of normal.

The thing is, it often comes down in such powerful downbursts that the figures can add up quickly, even if it doesn’t rain for a long period. Mrs. SR013 reports rain so hard the other day that it nearly obscured the forest behind our house, which is only about 35 feet away.

For more info on the rain in SW Ohio this summer, click here.

Cornhole Championships

Learning to toss a small sack of dried corn takes practice.

Cornhole is in the news again with the World Cornhole Championships currently under way in Florence, Kentucky, just south of Cincinnati. (See the Enquirer article here.) Cornhole was invented in Cincinnati, and the tournament is sponsored by the American Cornhole Organization, headquartered here in Milford. In a few days it will crown a “King of Cornhole” and a “Queen of Cornhole.”

Despite the game’s unfortunate name, it’s kind of addicting, as some of my family members can attest. Viva Cornhole!

Early Harvest

Today’s Harvest – tomatoes, peppers, a cuke and some blueberries

We got our garden in earlier this year than we did in 2012, thanks to a concerted effort by Mrs. SR013 to get seedlings started indoors in March (the conventional wisdom here is that you shouldn’t plant vegetables outdoors until Mother’s Day, since there could be a hard freeze up until then). So we are already reaping the rewards that come with vegetable gardening. The major tomatoes, eggplants, tomatillos etc. still have a while to mature, but as you can see, we’re already getting some pretty good stuff.

Mabel the Maple: Update

Mabel the Maple in the rain – July 4, 2013. For background on Mabel, click here.