Summer “rainers.” An old song that runs “eight for the April rainers” fits most years, but not 2003. Of the 2.49 inches of precipitation I recorded in April, about 1/3 fell as snow and sleet. “April rainers” accounted for just 1.6 inches of the total.

But summer 2003, as dormant local cash registers attest, has turned the tables. From June 15 until the afternoon of August 11, when I write, I’ve recorded 11.24 inches of rain near Milanville, accompanied the last ten days by cannonades of lightning and thunder.

Had I kept a rain gauge in Honesdale, or at the Wayne County Fairgrounds, I expect the tally would be closer to 15 inches.

By way of contrast, the tally for the same dates in 2002 was 2.62 inches, which left the hay-meadow sere and brown and the river ankle deep.

	TRR photo by Ed Wesely (Click for larger image)

Field notes. A sure sign of mid-August is the proliferation of monarch butterfly eggs on milkweed plants. At Honesdale High School last week, I discovered in the lawn a network of small milkweed leaves that held 56 monarch eggs—which I snipped off and brought home to rescue from the next grass cutting.

The picture shows a female monarch laying a single egg on a milkweed plant at the farm. Grasping a leaf with her front legs, she swings her abdomen underneath to deposit her egg. An arrow points to the abdomen.