Saturday was warm and dry. The soil surface has dried out, and there are no signs of the 6” of rain from last week.  Although this area was predicted to have rain during the day on Sunday, no rain arrived, but strong southerly breezes and plenty of sunshine prevailed.  Containerized tomato plants are full of tomatoes and get watered twice daily.   Even the gladiolus planted along the driveway with zinnias get drip irrigation twice weekly. Just as roadwork finished adding turn lanes to the highway in front of my house, across the street there’s a new land development taking place. The school board in our area is dividing the K through 8 public school into two separate levels:  primary and middle school buildings. They have started deforestation work across the street from me in preparation to add the new school buildings.  Two large track hoes are removing trees and stacking logs. The soil seems to be in good shape. The tracks on the equipment are clean considering we had over 6” of rain a few days ago. The tall pines and other hardwood trees must have soaked up the rain, leaving the soil workable. After predicting rain for two days, finally on Monday afternoon, we received  a tiny shower, hardly wet the driveway.  Rain is falling; it just stays to our north and west as this pattern is expected to continue.  Overnight Wednesday through midday Thursday, this area received a little over an inch of rain. Not much runoff.  Friday saw a trace of rain early morning, and drops fell that afternoon, but a line of showers overnight dropped less than a quarter inch of rain with more of the same in the upcoming week.  The front yard drains well after the renovation work last summer to level out the soil from decades of ruts from mowing.