When it rains, it pours

We got 2 more inches of rain yesterday. That's on top of an inch which fell earlier in the week. And right now, it's pouring again.

I was at friend's house for dinner last night, and they got a phone call
around 9:30 from their daughter, whose house was struck by lightning, which left a basketball-sized hole in their roof. Fortunately, they were at the other grandparents' at the time. They had only just moved here from Ottawa and had been in their house for about three and a half weeks.

The radar picture at noon today
I don't know where this exceptionally wet weather is coming from because it's been cool, not hot and humid. We appear to have a big upper-level low spinning over southern Ontario, and it's not going anywhere fast. There was flooding at our creek again overnight, but it was gone by morning. My neighbor, who owns two 18-hole golf courses across the road from us is not happy this summer.

This week's newsletter from the organic growers we get our vegetables from had this to report:

One of our best-known and shareholder favourite items had a crop failure due to heavy storms and hail, that we thought did more damage to the onions, actually hurt the peas more. We figure on about a $40-$50,000 loss in farm income just for the peas, not including the onions, two spinach fields flooded out and other crops which are yielding less. It's no wonder the average income on Ontario farms last year was negative $15,000, AVERAGE! Our farmers are in a worse state than during the great depression.

Says my husband: "If you had a choice, you would not take up a job in a field in which the vicissitudes of the weather play a part."

I'm so glad I'm a gardener and not a farmer. In the late '90s, I tried being a garden designer for several years and I'm glad I abandoned that. Landscaping is almost as bad as farming. Writing about it is more fun anyway.

You have to feel for all the people whose livelihoods are affected by the weather, drought in 2007, deluge in 2008.

PS: We got another half inch of rain this afternoon, bringing the week's total to 3.5 inches.

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener