Thunderstorms!

It has been hot and dry. All last week there were predictions of chance of showers, even possible thunderstorms, but no luck. Today started out cloudy, but I took a chance and biked to work because as long as it isn't raining on the way to work, I don't mind the risk of coming home soaked, or even leaving my bike in my office and hopping the bus. As I left the office, it was cloudy but it still hadn't rained. I almost made it home, but ended up soaked in the last ten minutes. Sam was in the neighbourhood and passed by to weather the storm, so as it poured outside and Josh and I made dinner, Sam picked up Zara's guitar and we sang for a while. After a dinner that had absolutely no content from my garden besides strawberries, I sent Josh out to pick some mint for tea. Then I asked Sam if he wanted to see the garden now that the rain stopped. Before I knew it Iulia and her daughter Ada called me over to play and check out what was growing on their side of the fence, and when I turned around, Sam had left.

There is nothing like a garden after an intensive rainfall. Iulia discovered I have a white hollyhock growing tucked in among the lilacs in the corner of my back yard. She has a better view of it from her side of the fence. I would have missed it completely, and today it was in bloom. It faces a climbing rose on Iulia's side of the fence, tucked in between mint and tomatoes. She has been working on Ovidiu to loosen up on his prohibition against flowers climbing on the fence, and now there is a rose and a clematis (which is casading over her fence and dripping with purple flowers. Iulia says mine will look like that next year too). We have been scheming of me putting a lighter coloured clematis in the corner where my fence meets hers, once Josh puts our fence up (it'll happen by the end of summer so help me).

I discovered that the tomato plant which was a gift from Nathalie (Josh's landlady when he worked up in Mont Laurier) is a cherry tomato plant and is monstrous and full of little green tomatoes. Whee! I moved some of my cucumber plants over the weekend, and learned that this was a bad thing to do. They keeled over and played dead, but I think the thunderstorm and the downpour may have revived some of them. Iulia and I did a full tour of both of our properties, and are pleased to see how well our exchanges are doing. Okay, I only have one single daisy (it is a start), and she ran out of room for hot peppers, and has some little cups of tiny peppers languishing like my leftover unplanted tomatoes, but the rest looks pretty decent. She had some suggestions for where to move my moribund hydrangea. I think that hydrangeas don't like me, and I am still not convinced I like them. I have just taken their lack of success as a personal challenge.

Last night, I found three of my small sunflowers beheaded, two before even blooming. The leaves were damaged too, so I think it may have been the local groundhog (we have seen him around again), or squirrels. Josh broke out the container of Fox pee, although what we read online is that coyote pee is better for squirrels, groundhogs and mice (we have all three). We explored some alternative distribution methods, like pellets and vaporizers which do not wash away with the rain, like the jar Josh used last night (sigh). I just hope my property doesn't reek of piss.

We still have slugs. They have eaten the violets and pansies down to skeletons. They haven't done serious damage to anything else, though, but I see them in the evening. We have put down our third bag of slug be gone, and refilled the cups of beer. It is not nearly as bad as last year. Josh thinks that last year's eggs are still hatching out, but they are not maturing. One can hope. I have seen as many empty snail shells as live snails, which is promising. The apple tree and the crab apple are aphid infested. I have sprayed them with diluted dish soap intermittently. I also found a huge lamb's quarters near my tomatoes full of aphids and ants, which I uprooted and tossed over the fence. I have to keep them in check, they like peppers too.

Olga dropped by on the weekend, and picked my nettles as well as amarynth (I had no idea what that weed was. Who knew?) to make me a soup. She e-mailed last night to tell me she did something wrong and the soup came out bitter. I am certain I will have more nettles to experiment with. Fortunately, she says they are best when young and tender. I find they are painful and annoying when they get big and you pass by them en route to the tomatoes and end up full of embedded spikes. That soup better be worth it.

Our friend Misha dropped by midway through writing this. He came to worm in my garden as he is heading up north to fish. We have boasted about how our garden is bursting with worms, and after a rainstorm I figured this would be a no brainer. Surprise, not a single worm to be found. I suppose they hide under the roots and I hit them whenever I transplant anything, and we were trying to avoid direct contact with my plants. I offered him vats of slugs instead but he did not think they would weather the journey as well as worms. Mores the pity, I certainly have enough slugs to experiment on.

The weather predictions are fair for the next while, I hope today's rain with last for a while. I am trying to minimize my use of water, but it has not been easy this summer. Let's hope for some intermittent thunderstorms.

On a complete tangent, I have another surprise tonight. I checked my stats and audience and now I have had two readers in the Phillipines. Gotta love the internet!