Last two days we have gotten five inches of rain, the majority falling over the last 24 hours. Lots of flooding in the Houston area but not where we live. Lost power last night for about eight hours. Happens frequently where we live, I suspect either a bad transformer or a bad fuse. I finally turned all the electronics off last night to avoid catastrophic failure as the power was dropping on and off for about an hour, not the best thing to do to electronics.
The garden has thoroughly enjoyed the rain, seems as if all the plants doubled in size overnight. I suspect it was all the nitrogen brought down from the rain. Squash plants a week ago were four or five inches high, now they're over a foot high. Tomatoes, eggplant, and sweet chiles are covered with blooms. The pole beans, both lima and green, are climbing like lantana, fast. Cukes are finally starting to climb but as yet no blooms. The fig tree is setting fruit and I'm already seeing flower buds on the kumquat. The lonely two pears on our Tennousi pear are about the size of my thumb already.
We hoped for more pears but we had no bees at the time of bloom. We're seeing a few honey bees plus mason, carpenter, and bumble bees but not enough to do a good job of pollination. No bee flies as yet but I know they're around somewhere. The new subdivision going in behind us isn't helping as that was where most of our bees were coming from the now non-existent woods. No need to seek out a beekeeper as the dairy farm nearby has been spraying again by aircraft and we get the over spray. The damned farm is two miles away and we still get spray. I think I shall complain. In addition they plant rye grass every fall and we get that over flight too. It's a PITA to be digging rye grass out of the gardens and lawn. It does get into the composter though.
Otherwise it's a decent day, cool, overcast with a threat of more rain, which in Texas is never enough. It was only a few years ago that we were in severe drought conditions. Rain is a blessing we needed and will for some time as there are more and more restrictions on using ground water.
We're still harvesting lettuce, radishes, beets, spinach, chard, and other "winter" greenery and enjoying it. The Barbados dwarf cherries are in full bloom and all of about eighteen inches high. Make a good display in the front flower bed, backed by the perennial Bright Lights chard and, we might actually get some of the tiny, edible cherries.