Rain is General . . .

. . . all over my town.

Last night I fell asleep with the last paragraph of "The Dead" in my head, to the sound of continuing rain. Even though I know of at least three places in my house that aren't dealing well with it (not the roof, thank goodness) I'm delighted to see and hear and, yes, feel it.

What you aren't going to be able to see are all the pictures I took of me carefully transplanting paste tomatoes from their soil "blocks" to big pots, using lots of new potting soil. As the day I was doing it had air as soft as a baby's bottom, I felt foolish -- shouldn't I just be popping them in the ground? The next night, I had my answer. The temperature dropped back into the forties, and then the skies opened. I had taken careful pictures, but the camera was loaded with videos of my kids doing something they probably shouldn't, and it took too long to download. Then I mislaid the camera and it hasn't shown up again. Yes, I live in a house where these things happen.

Today is the second day of truly pissing down rain. The rain barrels are filling up, and the things out in the garden already are pretty cheerful, as am I, since I laid sod three weeks ago and now I'm not using bathwater to keep it alive, while prancing around in my jammies.

Alas, I will not be spending the day curled up on the couch knitting with tea in reach. It's Drive Around Like A Homeschooling Parent Day, so hooray for rain gear.

"Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”
― James Joyce, Dubliners

Rain shadow, rain shadow

I've been singing since I came in from the garden.

Finally a bit of rain after so much cold, but dry weather. The garden needs it, and I need it since the breakdowns in the irrigation system mean watering isn't a hands-off experience. At least until I get the problems fixed.

I used to live somewhere where it rained almost every night most of the year, and was generally clear during the day. It was nice in that respect. From my current perspective, I didn't appreciate it enough. My sandy soil, even with amendments, drains quickly and the plants prefer consistent watering. So I am always happy to see our rainy season come along when things like carrots are much easier.

Even so, there are pockets of my garden that are not as fortunate as others.

This bed is in the middle of the yard, beside the apricot tree but not under anything. Nice and moist.

Then, there's the Acacia Tree of Doom.

If you were an onion plant or a volunteer Red Russian kale, this would be your skyward view. Personally, I wish this tree would go to the great beyond the way the one in our yard did years ago. I'm not in charge, however, so we content ourselves with cutting back what we can.

It's not quite enough, as you can possibly see:

Really dry under there. The rain has to be excessive or at a slant to get past the tree's umbrella.In addition, I bet some of the roots are underneath it, sucking water up even if it does get to the surface. So I water this bed by hand or carefully plant dry-tolerant crops there.

What kind of microclimates does your yard have?

First Freeze

Rarely do really hard freezes hit our area. If they do, the citrus growers scramble with smudge pots and gardeners cover up delicate plants. A few years ago, it was easy to see which plants came from tropical places -- black, slimy heaps marked what had been Datura and other softies.

Not until the dogs and I rounded the shady side of the dog park at 7:00 this morning did I realize that we were in for cold weather. Of course, I hadn't taken cuttings from the Padron pepper as I'd planned to. Fortunately, upon inspection it looked okay.

The strawberries should know that blooming in December is a bad idea. Maybe this will convince them?

 

Hardy parseley, kale, and the other cole crops just looked pretty but not overly put-upon. Garden stalwarts.

Everything else looked pretty okay, and today marked the first time I used warm bath water to water the seedling beds. It's so much easier on my hands than pumping cold rainwater from the barrels. Because of  the hole in the pipe, I'm going to be doing some hand watering until I get my act together to fix the irrigation!

Green is a lovely color

And yet, and yet. . . I'm getting just a teensy bit tired of it. (Yes, anyone is welcome to remind me of this in about two weeks' time.) We have had a terrifically cool summer. It's almost showing off to mention it, because I know we have family and friends who continue to swelter in unaccustomed heat, with them and their gardens suffering. Changing weather patterns hurt everyone, just in different degrees of severity.

Knowing that I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, suffering, I do wish to whine about one thing.

Or a few. Such as this one:

And these wasp-waisted jewels:

Next to them, orbs of shiny green loveliness:

And finally, finally, on a plant that bloomed for the first time in February, for goodness' sakes, something that looks about like what we're all waiting for:


We complain mightily when it's too hot, as almost no one here has air conditioning, but I wouldn't mind a few more ripe tomatoes! Thank goodness for the Sungold cherries!

We got weather

This is one day's fall this week.


I'm not keeping accurate records because emptying the gauge when I race outside between squalls hasn't been high on my list. I did set up another 50 gallon barrel to fill, though. Might as well retain this free water. My sandy soil means that we have no puddles anywhere, unless you count the 1/4" one that formed in the middle of the compacted path for an hour or two.

It's not just gray skies and rain, though. No, we got a Real Storm, complete with lightning and thunder and -- hail! (And weeds.)


Just in case I'm not being enough of a geek Californian, a close-up!


One actual downside of the wind + water equation is that I'll need to shore up the shelling peas when the storm cycle passes. I hope no permanent damage is done. Not, for instance, like my oldest child picking all of the immature peas because she thought they were snow peas, no, nothing like that.

And the ants have finally Had Enough and marched into the house. Time for vigorous vacuuming and wiping with vinegar and strewing bay leaves, I suppose. Or I could just wait for the weather to turn.