Trying to Save the Rhodies

I've lived in Washington for most of my life, and I can't remember a stranger weather year:  wettest winter and spring on record, followed by driest and hottest summer on record.  Luckily, we have an irrigation system to the garden from the lake that is mostly underground.  I've had to clean out the foot valve at the end of the dock a couple of times as the lake level has gone down and the valve ended up on the bottom in the mud.  But by diligently watering nearly every day for a couple of hours at least, the garden has thrived.

We've had a lot of meals that were just veggies from the garden stir fried together.

But the water only goes as far as the garden, and we have about another 1000 feet of driveway to the road.  Years ago we found a Rhodendron farm in Marysville that was going out of business, and we bought several rhodies for the entry.  They've grown and gotten absolutely beautiful over the years.

They are really drought resistant, but this year was more than exceptionally dry, and they were starting to look really sad.

Ron rigged up a 50 gallon barrel in the tractor bucket, and brought it to where the water ended so we could fill it.

We brought three loads of water to them and hope that will be enough to keep them alive until we finally get some rain.
Our summer is winding down now, and for the first time in several months, they are predicting RAIN - not just a 10% chance of scattered showers, but real rain.
I'm ready!