Today, rain’s been falling all day long. It’s been dark, chilly, and wet, and super dreamy. I really enjoyed watching and hearing the rain from inside the house, something I’ve had precious little chance to do for months.

As of the weekly drought report on Tuesday — a day when we also had a bit of rain — my region of New Hampshire was still in a severe drought, lingering since mid-August and following from the moderate drought declared here in late June. It’s fortunate that we couldn’t take long trips this summer since I spent about an hour, sometimes more, almost every day filling the birdbaths and watering the vegetables and vegetable seeds, annual flowers and flower seeds, and new perennials. I used the spring rain captured in the rain barrels when I could, watering each plant or seed row by hand at the soil, both to conserve water and for the health of the plants.

Here’s what the garden looked like late this afternoon — my own soggy dreamscape.