The effects of rain

Another rainy day.

Past 10 days were the rainiest time I remember in my 9 year history of living in Japan.

It's rainy season so rain is to be expected. But even a rainy season usually has the decency of letting a few sunny half-days break the monotony. Not this time.

So how does the rain affect our power plant and its inhabitants?

Thanks to the rain, our power plant turned into a pond.

The reason why there is a pond is because the power plant is built on clay. I have dug many holes in order to plant 60+ hedge trees, so I know that when you start digging and get through a thin layer of topsoil embroidered with weed roots, you hit a layer of crushed stone (which is itself extremely fun to get through with a shovel). After that, you find a fine layer of heavy clay soil. On dry and sunny days, it's hard like stone and impossible to dig. On rainy days, it's gooey and you can carve it in slices and make shapes like playdough. This clay soil is virtually leak proof and helpfully keeps all the water for the weeds. Two days of rain and we have a nice pond.

Chickens don't like rain either. In fact they don't care, but if it lasts too long, the ground gets muddy, their poop gets smelly (I'm sure they find it smelly too) and generally it's not fun. You can see it on their faces.
What's worse, because of the rain, we can't work on the fence to enlarge chickens' playing area.
As expected, the 20 square meter plot we opened for them 2 weeks ago is by now completely void of grass.

Chickens' playground two weeks after opening.
 No grass left, only the one I bring in.

The only greenery is the one I bring in twice a day . Chickens devour their portion of salad in minutes and in the next moment are hungry for more.

Not much fun outdoors - chickens spend more time indoors:

Their favorite indoor activity is meditation on perch:

Fortunately, there is one group of inhabitants that is thriving thanks to the rain: frogs. Another name of our power plant could be Frog Paradise. Here are some frog siblings having siesta before breakfast:

Weather forecast says the rainy binge should end tomorrow. Sun will prevail!