Gentle Rain returns

Yesterday the two month drought in the Woods came to an end with a long slow rain.  It began very gently for hours and lasted until almost midnight. The total was a good solid inch of rain. This afternoon at 4:30 I walked along the Tree Loop to see how the Woods had changed. There was a wonderful new smell of wet fallen leaves. The forest floor that had been crinkly dry for so long was now getting on with decomposition. The rich, earthy, hay-like smell was slightly sweet in the mix of oaks, elms, sugarberries, pecans, hickories and juniper at the northern beginning of the Loop. West across the Woods in the pure stands of green ash, the smell was sharper, a clean acidic smell. Because the rain had been so gradual, most of it soaked into the parched ground. The Wash was filled, but it did not look like there had been overland flow.
I am delighted to find another blackjack oak a bit off the Tree Loop trail, only the third in all of the Woods. It is the same size and age as the other two. It is located about 50 feet east of the juniper #91. A large dead oak(?) fell on it and has bent the top; but the tree looks like it is surviving well enough and should go on and grow.