Finally, It Rained!

On 14 and 15 September 2023, it rained in Oak Cliff, my neighborhood in Dallas TX and all around the city! We had had no rainfall since June, and had endured 53 straight days of 100 degrees+ daily temperatures. 

The temperature dropped below 100 earlier that week. It was still in the 90s, but the 90s were such a relief!

Anyone who continues to deny climate change after what we have been through just isn’t paying attention. This summer’s weather was not normal in the Dallas area or across the country. The summer of ’22 was a scorcher, but it was just a preview of what was to come this year.

In spite of the withering weather, when I returned from vacation and began watering my burnt up okra plants, all but one of them came back from the dead! They leafed out, and now they are bearing fruit! I think I’m going to have a fall growing season. Who’d’ve thunk it? It’s an end-of-summer/early fall miracle!

I am so grateful every time it rains now, as it did again last night. The drought is not over, but the dry spell has been broken. Still, I can’t help but wonder what Mother Nature has in store for us this fall and winter . . . or if we will even have anything akin to fall or winter this year!

PEI