Rain, rain, come my way!

The thunder yesterday sounded encouraging, but the storm dropped so little water that I felt I still needed to lug around the watering can again.

It's been so dry (how dry was it?) that I've used up all the water in both rain barrels and I'm filling the watering can from the house tap. Sigh. It feels so wasteful! I've almost - almost, mind you - been tempted to hook up a sprinkler.

In the category of wasteful, sprinklers score a capital W for Wasting Water. The water sprays into the air where much of it evaporates and never reaches its target. The area watered by a sprinkler gets wet - all of it. Vegetables, flowers, weeds, and walkways all receive the same amount of water. Water ends up soaking the leaves rather than the roots, too. Some water will evaporate from the leaves, but too much may cause diseases. When I bring out the watering can, I can direct the water to individual plants and pour it straight into the ground for those thirsty roots. A sprinkler doesn't do that.

Soaker hoses are better. I own a soaker hose, a short permeable hose that lets the water drip out into the soil. I can wrap it around the areas that need water the most and know that very little will evaporate. It's especially fun to hook up the soaker hose to a rain barrel, but you heard me earlier; my rain barrels are empty.

Sigh. Mother Nature, the rivers in the North Dakota are high enough. Send some rain this way!