Let it rain

I finally have rain barrels! Two of them. I just need to let the cement around the where the spigots are to dry for a day or so, and they'll be good to go! So, let in rain, but in a day or two. The forecast for around here is calling for hot and dry, although there's a lot of thunderheads building up and a couple overhead are looking dark.

I do still have to get the cinder blocks set up for the one at the northeast corner of the house, but it's still kinda hot out, so I might get to that later this evening. The blocks at the northeast corner of the garage are all set up, and the flexible downspout attachment is on, so it's good to go as soon as the adhesive is dry. It's nice to have a couple done, as I've been wanting to this for, well, since I bought the house, really. I should probably thank my friend Karen, who put together her own rain barrels earlier this year, for getting me going on mine (not to mention bringing me those excellent 50-gallon barrels to use!).

While working out there this morning, I was a bit startled by a snake in an adjacent flower bed. I think it was either a Kansas glossy snake or a Great Plains rat snake. It didn't rattle at me, at least. It was probably just getting some sun and didn't like all my activity. It crawled into a hole and went under the garage. So mom, if you come over to pull weeds some morning, take a good look around first! And don't kill it. I haven't noticed any signs of mice in the garage for quite some time!

There IS a lot of wasp activity in and around the garage, however. I'm all for "live and let live," and a few I could deal with, but there were so many they were starting to get aggressive with each other, and that's probably not a good thing for a bystander human or dog. So it was off to the store this afternoon for some wasp spray. I found a few nests in the garage and gave them a quick spray awhile ago, so maybe it'll start working quick enough I could enjoy an evening out in the yard later.

The other day, I also found a little lizard in the container I use to catch drips from the faucet on the back patio. He was a cute little thing, really, but I haven't been able to find any pictures online of anything like it. It was about 6 inches long, half of that its tail, and gray-ish with several alternating black and greenish-yellow stripes running from behind its eyes along its sides to the tail. I let it loose in the garden under the tree in the back yard. I saw a similar lizard (or maybe the same one?) later this the morning in the same garden where the snake was. It ran into the same hole the snake went into. Oops.

Add to that a turtle discovered the log in the creek along my property for sunning itself, and the mallard hen with her ducklings, and it's been a wildlife-filled day.

Relay for Life

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Originally uploaded by junogle.

Survivor lap at 2009 Relay For Life of Ellis County.

My first all-nighter at Relay For Life tonight. It's 3:30 in the morning. We've still got about three and a half hours to go, not including the cleanup. I get quiet when I get tired. Others are getting loopy. Others were loopy to start with. So it's an interesting mix right about now.

I've been uploading photos to Flickr throughout the evening, since it turns out I can find a barely there Wi-Fi signal. The weather turned out OK, although we started out with a t-storm watch early in the evening. It's been breezy and the luminarias didn't get lit until well after dark, but it's been a good evening.