Rainy day thoughts

It's been raining every day -- including Sunday which was tour day -- with no end in sight. Besides the more worrying consequences like flooding, this means not much gardening going on right now. Which is probably a good thing since I packed a week of work into two days before the tour.

But that means that I get to riff again today, my thoughts jumping all over the place. I'll start with a lament about rain-flattened plants like the Fargesia 'rufa' above. Looks great when it's dry, but it is a big floppy mess when wet.

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Tension

Surface tension that is. As in the force that allows a water drop after a much-needed rain to keep its shape as it rests upon a thankful leaf.

There are times of the year when a dripping-wet morning is really one of the most wonderful things in the garden...

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dew-covered bee

Some days I have to really think to come up with a title for a post -- something catchy, creative, but still relating to the subject of the text. Today is not one of those days.

Today there are no surprises, no wondering what the heck this post will be about. This post will in fact be about a bee. A wet bee.

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Rain!

After at least six weeks of no significant rainfall in my yard -- possibly much longer but I'm afraid to research -- we finally got rain! It started early in the morning with thunderstorms, then it rained steadily pretty much the entire day.

The ground got a deep soaking, the temperature really dropped, and everything was still wet the next morning.

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Rain rain rain rain (no rain) rain rain...

The severe storms that have affected so many people throughout the middle and southern parts of this country make it seem petty to talk about any weather that's non-lethal, but I can only talk about my own recent experience, and in St. Louis our recent experience has been rain. For the past 10 or so days it's been rain, rain, and more rain. It comes as hours of light or moderate showers punctuated by thunderstorm, sometimes severe. We had a few hours of sunlight late Tuesday afternoon, but then the clouds and rain returned.

Yesterday morning was the first sunrise we've seen for a while, and although it rained later in the day it was nice to see sunlight for most of the morning and early afternoon. I took advantage of the morning rays to take some photos of the wetness -- the first photos I've taken in five days!

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Spring, part 1

Everything seemed to align perfectly: sunshine, very warm weather, the weekend, and the first day of spring.

I got outside with the camera to celebrate.

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Damp

The other morning when I was digging up the sea creature that was the Elephant Ears roots I had to pick up (again) a large potted bamboo that was laying on the ground. It's a division from an established plant and has some tall, large culms on it. This makes it somewhat top-heavy and although it's in one of the largest pots I have and I have anchored it with some boards, it still falls over whenever it gets breezy.

When I picked it up, I noticed some beautiful condensation on the culms.

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