Rather than having 2 or 3 guys tied up on bridge staining for a number of weeks, today and tomorrow we are throwing all we have at it. 9 gallons of TWP dark oak stain, 13 paintbrushes and a team of go-getters and this is just a small project! 🙂 By tomorrow afternoon, this will be a distant memory!
A really good chance of rain is scheduled for Friday, and it is much needed. Since January 1st, we’ve had over 26” of rain. To put that into perspective, that total equates to almost 130” for the year if the same trend continues for the next nine months. Would you believe me if I said we’ve never irrigated this much in a spring season as we have this year? How is that possible if we’ve had that much rain? The answer is that those 26” of rain fell in a total of about 5 or 6 individual rain events. Between each rain event, the humidity has been very low and the breeze has been fairly constant. Therefore, the water produced during those rain events, either ran off or evaporated very quickly. This is led to us using a much higher than normal amount of irrigation water since the end of February, when we pressured up the irrigation system. Most years, the system is brought up to pressure in late March. If those 26” of rain fell in a pattern of 1-2” a week for the last 9-10 weeks, I’d be telling a totally different story. In short, we always have to be on our toes and ready to respond to the curve balls that Mother Nature is known for.