Published: September 14, 2009 12:31 pm      

Rain continues in Johnson County

If you’re Ben Oefinger, who resides in southwest Cleburne, there can be such a thing as too much rain.

“I fertilized last Wednesday,” he said. “Now, I’m going to have to figure out a way to mow. I may have to bring in goats or invite some of Cleburne’s golfers who hit the grass instead of the ball.”

Oefingers reported between 7 and 8 inches of rain from Thurday night to Monday morning.

“Our rain gauge holds 6 inches,” he said. “It ran over.”

Ronnie Galbreath, who resides on FM 917 west of Joshua, faced the same rain gauge predicament.

“Ir ran off over 5 inches,” he said, “so I don’t know how much we got. It was probably over 6 inches.”

Whatever it was altered the appearance of the earth.

“It filled up my stock tank,” Galbreath said. “There’s a big tank on 917 that was just poumped out for cleaning. The rain this weekend filled that thing back up. It’s been a long time since we had a rain like this. I remember one with 10 or 12 inches, and that was years ago. But this one was pretty good, and it came at the right time. We had lots of good runoff and a good soaking rain.”

The local rainfall could add as many as two cuttings to the hay market, good news with winter on the way.

“There should be one more cutting and possibly two now,” Galbreath said. “If the fields will get dry, there’ll be a cutting pretty quick.”

Mrs. James Roden, who resides on FM 2258 in Grandview, reported 13.75 inches between Thursday evening and Monday morning.

Mountain Valley, between Joshua and Burleson, got between 7 and 8 inches for the weekend.

Cleburne Golf Links, adjacent to Lake Cleburne, recorded 8 inches.

Butch Helms, 315 W. Heard St., reported 11.75 inches between Thursday night and Monday morning.

Grady Storm of Sand Flat reported 9 inches.

Rain was apparently spottier at Cleburne Municipal Airport, which recorded 5.79 inches since Friday.

Gayle White, astute weather observer in southwest Cleburne, reported 7.69 inches between Friday and Monday morning.

“On Saturday, we had 2.89,” she said. “Sunday was 4.04. (Monday morning) was .43.”

For now, the drought is history.

“The first six months this year, we had 17.30 inches,” White said. “From July to now is 1.98.”

For September, she said, Cleburne is at 9.31, southeast Grandview 10.7, northwest Burleson 11.03 and east Burleson 9.33.

It’s not high tide at Lake Pat, but the ducks are in quacking good spirits. Lake level was 730.62 at 6:30 a.m. Monday compared to 729.09 at 5:30 a.m. last Thursday.

“Every little bit helps,” White said. “The level is still down at the dam. You can see quite a bit of the spillway.”

The rain dance continues.