From Parched to Soaked

​By Ken De Laat

“The rain is falling all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.” -Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child’s Garden of Verses

OK  Mom Nature. We get the message. Be careful what we ask for.
Following a spring drought that fostered a gypsy moth population explosion, lowered lake and river levels and demanded a daily hose handled soaking of the gardens at N3 World Headquarters the citizenry began clamoring for an urgent delivery of the wet stuff. 
Pleas went generally unheeded through much of April, all of May and a good hunk of June.
Then this week the appeals seemed to get heard and so, came the rains.

For the past few days we have done a pretty good impression of Seattle in winter. It’s not been the occasional shower. No no, we’re talking monsoonish type torrents pummeling the landscape with a (granted, much needed) soaking.
But enough already. The forecast calls for a pretty good chance of rain each day for at least the next week or so and while we were desperate in our need for some county wide hydration it is after all, summertime in the Mitten. A state, mind you, not known for lengthy months of warm weather. So each day the rain continues throughout the daylight hours it takes out one of the precious few days when outdoor frolicking is at its peak. 

So can we modify those requests a bit? Maybe a few less daytime deluges and a shift to more pre-dawn precipitation? Perhaps a steady 11pm-4am shower every third day or so?
C'mon Mom. It’s summertime and we want to play outside.