July
16,2016
A
gentle rain is falling on my gardens as I write. I've just come in
from checking on the vegetables in the raised beds. If pumpkin plants
could smile, mine would be grinning. In early June, I bought three
jack-o-lantern plants on a whim and settled them into the former
asparagus patch. Those little dudes have all survived and seem to be
setting fruit. I think their good health is due to all the rain we've
had so far this summer. It's way too early to start planning a
pumpkin-carving party, but maybe I can give our grandchildren orange,
softball-size squash this October, instead of my typical golf-ball
pumpkins.
The
rainy, cool weather gave our summer perennials an early-season boost,
especially for the new plants I added this month. If I walk into a
garden center and see blue delphiniums, I will grab a cart and load
up. In the past few weeks, I've filled in the curving flower bed in
our front yard with new delphiniums in cobalt, aurora, and sky blue
shades, which blend well with the white, mauve, deep purple and
lavender blooms I planted last spring. Before the rain fell, I also
transplanted pale yellow and pink foxglove and snapdragons, once
hidden in corners, to bare spots in the main garden. “See how much
money I saved us by transplanting, instead of buying new flowers?”
I asked my husband. (I'd casually draped myself across the bow of my
little green wheelbarrow, in a burlesque attempt to hide the new
plants I'd brought home from the garden center. Even after
transplanting, I still found delphinium-size empty spaces.)
Wet
weather has spared the neighborhood rabbits from another late-night
visit by their bunny-buddy, Benjamin BadKitten. For the next few
nights – after Ben brought in a scared but unharmed baby bunny, –
I lay awake, listening anxiously for the thwap-thwap of the cat door
and imagining our latest house guest. A baby raccoon? The two
squirrels that hang out in our apple tree? Or – I'm shuddering here
– a young skunk? Baby skunks are called kittens, so maybe my
BadKitten wanted to examine a black and white impostor up way too
close. But the rain kept him indoors, warm and dry in his favorite
chair overnight, instead of on the prowl for new buddies. BBK
believes rain turns his long hair frizzy and unmanageable.
As
the rain fell and the sky over the Palouse turned purplish gray, I
felt thankful that we have rescheduled my family's reunion to the
Seattle area in early August – instead of at our house in Moscow
last weekend. Lee and I have lived here for seven summers, and
neither of us remembers rain in early July. If I'd stuck to my
original plan and insisted the reunion be here, we would have been in
trouble. Last weekend, I watched our yard turn wetter and greener in
the chill rain and quietly hummed the chorus of a country song:
”Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.” Garth Brooks was
singing about a lost love, but he probably would have been even more
fervent if he'd ever faced my family en masse. There are not enough
homemade ravioli in all of Italy to deal with a crowd of soggy,
travel-weary adults and high-energy, cooped-up children for three
days.
On
Monday the sun came out, and I spent the afternoon weeding part of an
overgrown garden in the backyard. It's the spot where, I've told
myself, the soil is too clay-like for planting tulip and daffodil
bulbs. But as I knelt at the edge, pulling up clumps of tall grass, I
realized that the weeds slid easily through the still-damp dirt. Over
seven summers, Lee and I have planted hardy, flowering shrubs
there, and we must have worked that bed well enough to turn it into
usable soil. Later this summer, instead of wrenching my spade through
hard clay, I'll spend a couple of afternoons digging and planting
bulbs, for springtime waves of tulips and daffodils, in as many
colors as that small garden will hold. Where did I hide my fall bulb
catalogs?
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