Not What I Wanted

The aftermath of a ferocious storm late today. I needed rain for my lawn but this was not what I wanted.

My drip irrigation system has been a resounding success so far, making the severe drought this spring and summer a worry for others. My grapevines have disregarded the dry weather and survived the hot, dry seasons in fine shape.

My newly planted lawn is another matter.

I jumped the gun by about three weeks, seeding the cool season KY-31 tall fescue in the middle of August. I've had better ideas in my life. Although the temperature moderated as expected into the 80s for the highs and lows perfect for cool season grass seed germination, the normal rainfall did not play along.

Things got kicked off with a toad-strangling rainfall a day after planting that caused me to fear a washout. Fortunately, the seed was sufficiently deep that I lost very little in that first rush of rainfall. And that was pretty much it for rain since. I spent the remainder of August and thus far in September dragging hoses around trying to keep the grass sufficiently watered. Evey promise of rainfall disappointed.

That is, until tonight.

A ferocious thunderstorm rolled through here at 6 p.m. that was nothing short of frightening. It was a real Texas-style blow; I've not seen anything like it since we left Dallas two years ago.

We got fierce swirling wind and rain that looked like boiling smoke. I was thinking "tornado." It was downright scary. I was looking out the back windows as this monster rolled through when it occurred to me to look out the side windows. A blow like this would surely leave a trail of destruction in the vineyard.

To my dismay, perhaps twenty percent of the vines are flattened, far worse than the last time I experienced this kind of blow. I was sick at the thought of losing vines to strong winds.

But the best part of this vineyard adventure is the experience you get from actually doing something rather than merely reading about it in a book. I learned then that grapevines are far tougher than the bamboo stakes to which they are tethered; all the disappointment was vanquished when I found the vines only suffered the indignity hitting the ground rather that being uprooted.

I will go into the vineyard early tomorrow and re-stake the downed vines and hope that broken bamboo is my only loss. Experience suggests this will be the worst of it.

My lawn, however, has been aided by the rainfall that may push the grass over the hump from stressed to established.