Thursday, June 4, 2009

The Mother of All Rain Gauges

Farmer B isn't what I'd call an overly-romantic guy, so when he does do something especially romantic, it really means a lot to me. The other day when a mystery package arrived at the front door and Farmer B said "Surprise!" and opened up the Mother of All Rain Gauges, I remembered why I married him.

I am now the proud owner of a Rainwise Wireless Dual Counter Digital Rain Gauge that is proudly mounted above the well in our back yard. It has an 8-inch diameter bucket to collect the rain and every time it tips, a count is transmitted to the indoor display and the gauge empties. Each tip shows one hundredth of an inch on the indoor display and you never have to empty the gauge. Suh-weet!


I'm excited about this rain gauge for two reasons:

1) We've had record-breaking rains both times I've planted the garden and we've always wondered exactly how much rain fell at our house. Sure the weather guys tell us how many inches fell in our area, but I'll admit to being curious as to exactly how much fell at our house so that I can brag about it to our friends. This is one of the many reasons I realize what a complete and total nerd I can be at times. Don't worry - I haven't signed up to be a weather watcher for our local news station.

2) Buying this fancy rain gauge guarantees that we'll never have record-breaking rainfall at our house again. This purchase means that no one in our neighborhood will ever be flooded again. Sadly they won't know why, but I'll know that our new highfalutin rain gauge was the reason. It's like going on a vacation to a gorgeous sunny beach and buying expensive sunglasses halfway into your trip - it's a given the sun will stay behind the clouds for the rest of the vacation. It's the Murphy's Law of my life.


This rain gauge meets National Weather Service specifications for statistical accuracy so I'll be all geeked up the next time it rains. As you can see from the photograph, it hasn't rained since we installed the thing 3 days ago since it's still registering at zero. The wireless display works up to 300 feet away so right now it's sitting in the kitchen behind my laptop. Farmer B is itching to install it on the wall so it doesn't get broken by the boys, but I think it's too unattractive to be screwed into the wall, so we'll see who wins this battle.


Maybe I'll lose the two mounting screws... that's guaranteed to throw a kink in his plan...

9 comments:

Sue said...

Oooo, this sounds too neat!! Lucky you.....
And clever idea with the mounting screws. I "lose" things like that all the time.
:)

Kelly said...

Oh I love it! Get your nerd on girl, I can't wait until it rains in your neck of the woods. 8)

Unknown said...

You ain't just a kidding about that being the Mother!! At least you could let him mount it on the wall...

Jeff Vandiver said...

How thoughtful! I may have to build one of those, myself. Thanks for showing it.

Becca's Dirt said...

Nice of him to buy you a rain gauge. Good idea to lose the screws.

Dani said...

Hurry up and lose those screws girlfriend!;0

Love Kelly's comment about getting your nerd on! Too funny!

Tessa at Blunders with shoots, blossoms 'n roots! said...

Unless he's one of those guys that saves screws he finds over the years! Like my muscle is. Love the geek gadget- very useful! Glad I'm not the only one :)

Daphne said...

I always wanted one of those personal weather stations that people have hooked up to weather underground. Sadly they are in the four figures so one is not in my immediate future. But it would be fun to have one.

Kate and Crew said...

Kelly - LOLOLOL - get my nerd on - I'm dying - LOL

Daphne - we actually have an entire weather station hooked up. But it sorta stopped working in 2004...I'm not sure if it was the oppressive heat, which cracks everything made of plastic or if it was the insane hurricanes in 2004, but it's a dud now. You can actually see the dead rain gauge hanging down in the pic where Farmer B is installing the new rain gauge (it's a cream-colored thingy hanging down). It's since been removed...

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