# finally tested the Rain Defender

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Posted by Zonie on January 17, 2023 at 17:36:46

Rain is always welcome, but sometimes the timing isn't the best. It came early Sunday morning, and my climbing partner cancelled our climb, but when I got to Reach 11 it stopped after only about 20 minutes. The temperature range was 50° to 55°, and apparently at that range I can't wear my drover coat in dry conditions while active without overheating. After hiking for a while I sweated through my shirt and took off the coat and secured it with the knapsack straps.

There was enough mud that I could judge drainage and make some trail repairs, so I had the opportunity to use my camp shovel on the east section of Reach 11. I dug a couple drainage channels and filled a couple holes.

Monday morning it was raining, and it occurred to me that since October I had neglected removing weeds from the alley. Back in October that had been the occasion of my first rattlesnake encounter of 2022. That was a very close encounter. I had been pulling weeds and saw what I thought was a stick or bit of debris among the weeds, and I picked it up, and it was wriggling in my hands. I didn't have quite the faith depicted in Mark 16:18, so I released it and stepped well back. It was quite a mellow snake and just slowly slithered away, not trying to strike or even shaking its tail. In the coming days I cleared the rest of the weeds but didn't see it again, so I guess it relocated to another part of the neighborhood.

With the winter rains, weeds were re-growing and cluttering the alley, and I knew that if the snake had come back, it wouldn't be active in this weather, so whatever hazard I faced, that wouldn't be it. I thought about wearing the drover coat, but then it occurred to me that I hadn't tested the hoodie with Rain Defender that I had bought four years ago. I decided to wear that. My camouflage ball cap was still muddy after my New Year's Eve wallow, so I figured I'd wear that and let the rain wash away some of the caked on mud. I wore wellies on my feet.

Behind my house the weeds hadn't grown terribly tall yet, but the bulk trash pickup had left a deep rut. With the sides muddy and filled with rain water, I stomped the sides in with my boots and made it more level. I then pulled the few tall weeds there. Further down the alley, the weeds were taller.

I got diverted by mesquite and palo verde limbs left behind the house two doors down. I broke apart the branches and threw them in the bin. Parts were too thick for me to break, so I fetched a saw from the back yard and sawed what was left into lengths small enough for the bins.

A few people were walking along the canal bank in the rain, but they didn't say anything. It occurred to me that the day was some kind of minor holiday, and perhaps many of them had the day off work.

Then I got to work on the tall weeds. They came up very easily from the muddy ground, and I'd strike them on the side of my portable bin to get the mud off them and throw the weeds in, and my jeans would brush against the bin and get wet and muddy, and I'd splash through the mud puddles in the alley going to the bins to dump the weeds.

Still the fun had to end sometime. Those people on the canal bank may have had the day off, but I didn't. I was expected at work at 1 PM, so around noon I headed in, took off the wellies and the muddy jeans and changed into steel toes and work overalls. It was a good start to the work week.

Unfortunately the Rain Defender seemed to work. Water beaded on the hoodie, and my shirt was mostly dry. It wasn't as severe a test as the 7½ hour hike in the drover coat on New Year's Day. The rain was light, and I was out in it for only a couple hours.

Follow Ups:

- Re: finally tested the Rain Defender kmf 01:42:30 1/21/2023 (1)
  - Re: finally tested the Rain Defender Zonie 05:40:27 1/21/2023 (0)

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