"April showers bring May flowers" - if the rain ever stops.

 

Well, April is gone and we actually missed the all-time historical record for rain in that month by .16 inch, slightly less than 1/5 of an inch. Besides, we are now more than 12-inches of rain above normal for the first four months of the year. Can't complain too much because last year we had a drought along with a non-stop heat wave of 90+ degrees all Summer long. The drought last year was so bad we all worried how many trees wouldn't survive but we kept the hoses running on as many as we could and it looks like we didn't loose any of them.

I managed to cut the grass with the tractor last week on a rare day we had some sunshine. The grass was over a foot tall and the tractor was leaving mud trails wherever I drove it. The same day we had the Rotts out for a walk and everything including the tractor and the dogs needed a bath when we got back.

This year we have had lots of severe storms along with the rain but thankfully nothing like they had further South. We had one scare during the last storm when the sirens went off and the weather man showed us some rotation in the upper atmosphere almost directly over our house. I took this picture off the TV from the Channel 9 weather report. You can see the circle in the middle that represented the rotation.

Click the pictures for a larger view.

Our friend Lucy moved into her new apartment and our Rottweilers are already beginning to miss her little Dachshund Tinker. In other words, things are getting back to our normal level of quiet around here. Because of the rain it is difficult to take the Rotts for walks in the back yard every day so all they have to do is take naps around the house. I love to take pictures of our Rottweilers running and playing in the back yard but taking pictures indoors is fun, too. Here are a few taken within the last few days, including one of yours truly, me.

Jackie and I celebrated our 51st anniversary on April 29th, the same day those other two people decided to get married in England. Hey, we picked that day first. We had a quiet stay at home celebration without the TV cameras and reporters bothering us. We like it better this way.