Gully-Washers!

Today, Monday, as of 6 P.M., has been a day without rain! The sky darkened for a bit just after noon, but the possibility of another storm seems to have passed by.

We woke on Friday to a T-storm and a hard sluicing  rain. 

Saturday afternoon I sat reading on the east porch, aware of clouds moving across the sun. The wind began to pick up and within moments tree branches lashed about and a deluge hit. Water poured from the barn eaves, splashing onto the ground below; rain slanted against the windows, thunder rattled. 

The house cats dashed for their favorite hiding places.

The storm was over in less than an hour; twilight moved in quietly with a pale blue sky laden with fast moving clouds in shades of pearl grey. When I picked my way cautiously down the wet front steps at 9:30 p.m. [calling a cat, of course] the half moon hung bright above the trees that line the south ravine.

Sunday morning I pulled on my battered wellies, went out to pick the expected fresh crop of Roma beans. I knew there would be mud--the kind that quickly enlarges one's boots to gummy clodhoppers.

I wasn't thinking ahead to damaged sunflowers. 

I plant them each spring in a slightly different place in the garden--usually commandeering a row that won't interfere with J.'s gardening scheme. This year the sunflowers occupy nearly half a row behind the Roma beans, leaving them susceptible to wind that drives from the south-west. 

Two stalks had been battered nearly horizontal. 

I fetched a shovel and struggled to hold the tall plants upright while attempting to stabilize the roots with a packing of wet soil. J. came to assist, but we had no success. Shallow-rooted, heavy-headed, already beginning to wilt in the morning heat, the two most battered plants were doomed. I laid them out on the grass verge of the garden and brought out my clippers to save as many blooms as still had some freshness.

You can see the upheaval of soil where the plants were toppled. Others along the row are rather perilously canted. 

I dumped down my red harvesting buckets and trudged round back of the house to see how other plants had fared.

I consoled myself by leaning against the west wall and plucking small weeds from around the pinks, tweaked out grass that was invading the clumps of thyme planted around the trellis.

Reluctant to go back to the muddy veg garden, I waded into the daylilies that border the lawn beyond the east wall, began heaving out handfuls of witch grass and smart weed [polygonum] recklessly hurling the stalks behind me onto the lawn. 

By the time I reminded myself that my real remit was to pick the beans, I was aching, sweaty, impatient.

The beans filled two of the gallon buckets which we save after buying them filled with strawberries. 

I was picking from the last few plants in the row when Jim bellowed out the door, 'Come eat!'

He had fried potatoes with bits of onion and green pepper, added rounds of beef summer sausage, fried eggs. 

My much-needed shower had to wait--one doesn't disappoint the chef.

Sunflowers fascinate me. Perhaps in part this is because the large blooms allow one to plainly admire the various parts of the flower, to appreciate them from tight bud to the last petals clinging to the huge seed heads.

This morning there is a golden dusting of pollen on the oak table top. 

[I think J. was slightly offended to find it so near his plate.]

My simple camera doesn't do justice to the intricacy  of the blooms.

It was well that my gardening chores were finished by early afternoon. 

In the evening there was a repeat performance of crashing thunder and pelting rain. 

This morning I realized, gazing at empty hummingbird feeders, the wind had swung both feeders back and forth, sloshing syrup onto the ground below.

I know well that as I grumble about toppled flowers, muddy boots, a sodden garden, we have been spared the dreadful devastation of the floods in eastern Kentucky. 

We are such creatures of our familiar places. To have 'home' swept away, the landscape altered, possessions--and lives of humans and animals--tragically lost--has to be over-whelming. 

An extra bit of beauty to cheer us.

Rosie was very taken with the vase of sunflowers which she helped to arrange.

Rosie has lately considered that the dining table is a suitable place to sit or sprawl.

Cats shouldn't be 'allowed' on the table [should they?]

But she is Rosie and knows she is 'special!'