It's two pickups, a car and a tractor that pull up at the same time to a country crossroads, each driver too polite to go first — four hands on four steering wheels taking turns with the friendly y'all-come-on wave. Well, we're not that polite.
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But we are, as a rule, pretty polite and tolerant when it comes to rain.
The Dust Bowl, the 1950s drought, and every major dry spell since have conditioned most of us, just and unjust, not to badmouth it in any amount.
Let me tempt fate: Enough already!
Home builders have had enough. Homeowners have had enough. Those of us who work for a living and tend our own yards have been caught up with mowing and weed pulling what, twice this year?
Even wheat farmers have had enough, since the rains that make or break a crop as its growing can flat break a crop at harvest time.
It's been so wet the Central Oklahoma Home Builders sent out a special release on how to repair your home if it's got water damage.
Oklahoma City home builder Jeff Click, vice president and secretary-treasurer of the association, has even been blogging about the soggy weather on his company's Web site, www.jeffclickhomes.com.
"It's almost mind-boggling how many ways it affects construction, some of which are obvious, while others not so much,” he wrote on the online journal. "In our construction processes ... the first half of building a house is most affected by less-than-ideal weather conditions.”
Grading the lot, digging and pouring the footing, plumbing, pouring the slab — all stall.
Inside work goes on, such as tile and trim installation and painting — but near-constant rain can make even that dicey.
Just walking up to a house — or, dang it, in my case, going to the mailbox and back — can bring the problem home: Red mud, which can create a whole different kind of jam.
Honey ...
Heavy rains slow home construction 06/23/2007 Soggy job sites have slowed construction, but not enough yet for demand to eat up much of the general oversupply of houses on the market in the Oklahoma City...
