At last...

I finally (FINALLY) got out and spent most of an entire day weeding, planting and transplanting.

Despite the resulting need to gobble over the counter anti-inflammatories like candy, I am feeling a huge sense of relief. There are hours (and hours) more work to do, including a lot of foolishly postponed weeding I ignored while temperatures were simmering in the triples, but I have enough of a start I think I now can actually break the rest down into doable pieces.

That is a difficulty I have when jobs feel too big. I know I can't get it all done so I typically postpone getting any of it done.

But I've crossed the line now, broken the barrier, entered the zone. Whatever you want to call it, after some cooler days and two rainy spurts, the plants came back and so did I. The gardening game is officially back ON.Now I feel I am functioning more properly as the gardener again, I also feel free to thoroughly enjoy the beauty of the garden.How about you? Are you steadfast in your garden chores weather be damned? Do you get daunted when large projects loom? I don't consider myself a fair weather gardener but seriously - the heat this summer. It was too much for active gardening in my book. Oh, are you sitting there silently judging me now for admitting I mostly kept out of the heat? (that is rhetorical - don't feel a need to answer unless you will be gently encouraging)

We may not have broken the all time record (and if you are one of those who felt that would somehow have made this past summer matter more I extend my condolences) but record breaker or not, I am thrilled to have the summer of '09 safely behind us. So, yup, I apologize for the interruption and will happily return to my regularly scheduled gardening.....

Did You Hear It?

We had that lovely three inch rain recently, and cooler temperatures to go with, but then the weather began to snap back into a disturbingly familiar pattern.

Warm by mid morning, hot by early afternoon, no rain in the forecast and despite the promise of a cooler wetter Fall, we all had become too well acquainted with heat and drought to quite buy the hopeful promise of "wet stuff to come". Jaded, we'd already spent weeks that turned into months with no rain or relief from triple digits here in Central Texas.

I had wearily resigned myself to more conversations about how if this does not change, people are considering packing it up and moving. Carrying the weight of The Potential For Hot and Dry Forever and Ever, Amen, as the temperatures climbed, all our heads were hanging a little lower, our steps slowed, warily surveying the skies.

But then it happened. Woken last night by a quick flash of lightning, thunder delayed just to the point of having stopped counting "Mississipi"s, and there, did you hear that?

The gently insistent whisper of rain hitting the roof, water flowing from gutters into barrels, all disturbing only the lightest of sleepers.

This morning, when we woke up, the Hub checked his schedule to discover he didn't have to be anywhere at any particular time. It was 65 degrees outside and our gauge was working on catching a third inch.

And so it was decided. Today would be a day to have a sit down breakfast. In the morning.

This might not strike you as particularly earth shattering but around this house we long ago abandoned the idea of any sort of a meal in the morning. Common wisdom be damned, after years of abrupt starts to the day we became "just coffee" in the morning people, and although we still enjoy breakfast foods a great deal, they had exclusively appeared in the guise of "breakfast for dinner" for as long as I can remember.

Not today. We opened the windows to cool breezes and the kind of peaceful quiet only a rainy day can bring (no mowing or blowing in this wet weather). I made nutty pancakes and sausage links and we enjoyed them with slow cups of coffee and watched the rain falling gently onto our grateful garden beds.Cool wet weather. I am not certain I have ever appreciated it so much as I have this year. The weather today soothes like a mother's cool kiss on a child's feverish forehead.I'm off to watch the hummingbirds quarrel over who gets what perch at their feeder. I hope you have a lovely day, wherever and however you are, and I hope you too are surprised by cool or warm or wet or dry, whatever you need the most.