As the saying goes, when it rains it pours cats and dogs. A typical year is about 30″ inches of rain with the heaviest month being June. With this here climate change, 2020 was not a very wet year. In fact, it was recorded as a drier than average year. This year, on the other hand, is being recorded as a wetter than an average year by almost double. Yes, double. To have double the amount of rain is a significantly substantial amount of rain.

January: Wet Pads
It should have been an omen when the New Year rang in with a bang. A bang followed by a strike of lightening and the pounding of rain. Bang, bang, bang. Every bang from the sky meant another days delay in the formwork for the concrete pad. When it wasn’t raining, it was windy and cold. Cat and dog learned to share space and when that didn’t work separate spaces were created to alleviate drama. Wet soggy animals and humans tracking muddy sand in everywhere is enough drama, fighting over bed space is not something that is needed to add to the drama. And then just as it seemed like the rain would never end, halfway through January the ground was dusty and dry and we were back in shorts. Crazy.
January Rain Total: 1.43″

February: Great Frozen Pad
At the end of 2021, Boxes in Fields was sure there would have been concrete pad by the end of last month. February turned out to be another month worth of delays for the concrete pad. Plans were moving along around the rain showers and mudholes in the ditches. Concrete workers and trucks were scheduled for pouring and then to all plans came the screeching halt. Finally, two months delayed, the concrete pad was poured, in all its crappy workmanship, the last week of February.
February Rain Total: 0.50″

March: Spring Cleanup
Spring forward another month and the rains were no more or less than February. Concrete forms were removed, repurposed into shelved, and restacked for other uses later. Storages boxes were removed of crap, reorganized of crap, and released to others for unwanted crap. It is truly amazing what people will take when it is labeled free. This free roaming cat who apparently get into fist-a-cuffs with other free roaming howlers was collared to show she was claimed. She may have been free but she has had plenty of love and money dumped onto her to release her from the worries of where to sleep and eat and repurpose her being to a pampered house cat.
March Rain Total: 0.60″

April: Auto Time
Four months into the year and time was slipping by while we moved along with day to day routines around the ever present rain showers. Only the hands of the auto correcting clock moving reminded me of how little was getting accomplished. Haven’t heard of auto clocks, well they are amazing! They are like the clock on all modern cell phones keeping time to Greenwich Mean Time. Never need to set forward (stupid time change) or backwards (stupid time change) because it always keeps the correct time. In between rain showers, immunizations, outside bathrooms, and gardens were tended. Both the cat and the dog took the rainy days as time to spend sleeping on chairs, workstations, concrete form boards, cabs of trucks, and decks when the grounds were wet.
April Rain Total: 1.99″

May: The Season is Upon Us
April showers beings May hurricanes. What started as light rains on the last day of April rolled into a deluge the first day of May. On the second day of May all the towels and beddings were hung on garden fences, clothes lines, backs of deck chairs. The Planner worked around the never ending rain in his Shop Box preparing the columns for the House Box. Tired of wading, the cat took to staying on the concrete pad or the garden while the dog kept to her bed on the floor in the Work Box. Rainy weather turns the doggo into a sleepy doggo.
May Rain Totals: 13.16″

June: Garden Column of Strength
Perfect summer weather held for the first few weeks of June, sunny, windy, and of course warm. For two weeks, the Planner and the Doubter erected House Box columns and two days after completion, another downpour. Rains at night bring the cat in sight. Doggo didn’t seem to mind. The Garden was coming to an end with the last clumps of tomatoes at the tops of browning stalks of vines. Trimming and tying indeterminate tomatoes is the way to go for pest control and offers a great place for the cat to sleep when it is not raining.
June Rain Totals: 5.46″

July: Rotting Days
Mid July after another solid weeks worth of rain, the world was rotting around us from all the moisture. Gardens were tilled under and covered in heavy duty plastic to kill the ever present nematodes. Heat, moisture, and direct sun for two-three weeks will bake away the root rot killers. Having been close to four years since last major repair was done on the Rainstream while staying at the Doubters after Hurricane Harvey, the Rainstream is long over due for a resealing and now rains inside every time it drizzles. Water runs along the back of the counter seeping into the cracks on the 10 year old caulk rotting out the counter from underneath. A new counter was installed and two weeks later the steps to the Work Box rotted out from sitting in standing water day in and day out. If it weren’t for dry boxes, the pads of the animals would have foot rot, too. Gross.
July Rain Totals: 18.87″

August: Too Hot to Rain
After a few short showers, August settled in hot and dry. Day after day the hot sun baked down upon our heads turning wet grounds in dry dust. Winds blew dust into your faces while moving boxes around in preparation for peak hurricane season. Grasses that were lush, vibrant green turned brittle brown by months end. The only cool place was the concrete pad first thing in the morning before the sun broke over the trees. Any chances of rain evaporated as it was just too hot to rain.
August Rain Totals: 0.66″

September: Cats and Dogs
Peak hurricane season arrived as expected with water temperatures in the upper 90’s. Boxes in Fields anchored down and waited it out Hurricane Nicholas. Not a drop of rain fell during the storm that followed the coast line north. A few weeks later however the weather station said it was raining cats and dogs as the rains poured in at five inches/hour. In ten minutes flat, 1.25 inches washed away dirt and grim after a month of hot dry weather. It was refreshing.
September Rain Totals: 3.38″

October: Water Collecting
Rain at the end of September carried into the first few days of October and then cleared out for ten days or so. The deluge in the middle of the month carried on for a week to finally clear out just before Halloween. Hard to trick or treat in the rain. Luckily the weather held and the wet soggy children all across the county ran amok with their sugary high. In between rain showers at the first and middle of the month, the Planner installed the Shop Box water collection PVC and trough.
October Rain Totals: 7.34″

November: Grey Days
Cloud covered skies day in a day out can lead to low dispositions. Add in a chicken murderer and the days look dark even when the sun attempts to peak through. Two months ago our beloved Doggo was set to her long nap, this month three chickens wasted. Not even a long bike ride through the refuge would break the gloom. Hiking every day in the bright sun for Thanksgiving and all was back on the bright side.
November Rain Totals: 1.75″

December: All Dried Out
Not wanting to be left out, December started out with a weeks worth of wet days. Seven days with less than 2/100″ rain each day. Then seven days without a drop. Week three was the only real rain netted all month over seven days. Not wanting to forget what the year held, the last day of the month brought another 1/100″. Not enough rain to amount to anything in the water collection tanks or water the garden. Just enough to be sticky sand on shoes and furry feet.
December Rain Totals: 0.41″

With clouds in the sky, the feel of rain in the air, and last years supply of fireworks pulled out of storage, county residents lit up the sky with their man made bangs and burst of lights. From just before dark to almost four in the morning, Boxes in Fields watched the the colors of night sky while their new furry footed friend took refuge in a cubby.
2021 Rain Totals: 55.55″