We just had some serious rain storms here in Escondido (written last week of January 2023).  And this after an endless drought.  All the trees and plants around here all seemed to be asking the same thing for the longest time:  “when o when will we get some real rain?”

It was like one of those nightmares that just goes on and on throughout the night, and even if you wake up briefly, and then go back to sleep, you just go right back into the same nightmare.  I’ve even had them where I was still trying to work it out after I woke up.  I would still go over it, work out different scenarios…

That’s what it has been like here with this drought, but I’m sure I don’t need to tell YOU that, if you are reading this.  Most likely you live here too, and you know all about it.  Maybe I worry about it so much because I’m working with these trees you know.

But my question is, couldn’t we get some moderate rain for a little while, and then some more rain after some time more, and gradually fill up our tank? 

Instead, what we had couple weeks back was a blitz of heavy rain that drenched the entire state, and blanketed the mountains with heavy snow.  Apparently we got over the entire drought in one swath, just a couple weeks in time.

The consequence to a lot of trees, when this happens, is that they fall down.  I have 2 possibly 3 days this week of fallen tree removals, and there was one across the street from TODAY’S job that was a huge monster, still precariously hanging on to the corner of the house, before it might fall the rest of the way down.

It seems when you go for long periods of no rain, then drench the ground to the nth degree, such as we experienced, the roots, possibly having been weakened over the long stressful time, just can’t handle the new condition of softness in the soil.