01 April 2016

Growing fins

Or gills, maybe. This year, we are the April fish — les poissons d'avril. If you can't swim, don't come to Saint-Aignan right now. Even though we had two wonderfully dry weeks in the middle part of the month, we've ended up with at least twice our average rainfall for March.

Anyway, you might know that a poisson d'avril is what an April Fool's joke is called in France. Nobody really knows why it came to be called that. I guess there was something fishy about things that happened on April 1.


What's feeling fishy here is our whole environment. Once again, it won't stop raining. It rained steadily all day yesterday, and it had rained most of the day before. March went out not like a lion, but like a trout. The pond out back is overflowing, and there's a river of water flowing down the hill behind our back gate. Ruts in the tractor path made by the vineyard workers' vehicles in squishy ground have provided the river bed.

For the record, we've had nearly two inches of rain — at least 45 mm — since last Saturday.

7 comments:

  1. March went out like a trout. That's funny. Wish you could post the water to us.

    We missed our averages in northern and southern cal, despite the giant El Nino warnings.

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  2. We have a bief full of "Café au Lait"...
    I haven't downloaded from the machine, yet...
    your post has reminded me!!
    When I went up to bed, the gauge was reading 18.9millipedes...
    over bleedin' 6"!!!
    The meadow was just beginning to firm up, too, dammit!!
    I need to change the SD cards in the spycams...
    that will allow me to see just how boggy it has become...
    if I don't comment about the month's rain later, send out the rescue boats!!

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    Replies
    1. I'm confused. 19 mm is three-quarters of an inch. Are you saying that you recorded 6 inches of rainfall in all of March?

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    2. No, just having you on!! But it deluged down over us and then you, I was watching it on the rain radar....little else to do yesterday!!
      I squelched my way to the owl box spy camera ... And continued on round the circuit...only to discover that my way was blocked by a "pond" that hadn't been there this winter... I retraced my steps, creeping as quietly as possible past the owl box.
      I will download the data from the station tomorrow and give an updated accurate amount...

      Delete
  3. Our March, although without killer hot days, has been the warmest on record.

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  4. Promised you the rain total... So far this year --- 24.12 centimetres or nine and a half inches!!
    I think the only reason we haven't flooded is because it has been almost constant light rain!!
    For comparison.......
    2015 13.38cm
    2014 15.15cm
    2013 15.39cm
    2012 14.55cm
    So around 10cm more rain than usual!!

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