Welcome rain

We are having a little light rain this morning. It has been weeks. The grass is very brown, as you can see. I don’t water in the summer and my grass comes back and it has lots of weeds as well. I am encouraging herbs to take over. I have parsley, spicy oregano, pineapple sage and thyme all competing with the grass/weed ground cover.

The climate news has been fairly appalling. The sinkhole in Russia, people falling in Texas and ending up in the burn unit because the sidewalk and asphalt temperature reaches 130, and the northern Atlantic Ocean breaking temperature records. I have two friends who are moving from Portland, Oregon to New Mexico. They have health issues that do better in heat than rain, rain, rain, but I worry. My daughter wants me to travel with her and I would like a destination that is not on fire. We are negotiating.

I did water the roses yesterday. Most of my plants are used to there being a couple month dry spell in the summer. Perhaps they steal water from the morning mist. A rhododendron died this year. I think the temperature of over 100 was too much for it last summer.

Elwha in the dry grass.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: climate.

Camellia again

My camellia IS blooming, but you can see what the weather is doing. Rain, rain, rain. This morning it is currently 41 and a high of 50 is predicted. I photographed the camellia from my desk chair.

There are birds nesting in the camellia. A family of golden crowned sparrows are popping in and out of the camellia. It is about 8 feet tall and 5 feet wide and thick, so they seem pretty safe there. Yesterday there were six on the ground below the feeder. I did not know what they were when I saw the first one and had to look them up: here.

We did have a few hours of sun in the afternoon yesterday. Still cool, but I sat outside with a cup of tea. Lovely.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Daily Evil: I is for irritated

I am feeling a bit like this elf: irritated about the rain.

Ok, yeah, I did move to the Pacific Northwest 23 years ago, and I could have moved away. I love the beaches and the mountains here. But when we are having sun once every 10 days or two weeks in the season they call “spring” here, I do get a little irritated at the rain. Yesterday and today the wind is howling too. Whitecaps and I am very happy not to be out in a boat.

This etching is 2.5 by 3 inches, titled Rain Forest, number 5 out of 25, 1985.

Soft cloak

The sparkling water distracts, while she is shy above it, cloaked. She waits for the moisture that remains after Mount Olympus has taken her share from the clouds as they roll over. Over the year Mount Olympus and her sisters take hundreds of inches before the clouds pass on to Tahoma, but she catches the moisture left and builds a soft cloak. She is nearly hidden in the blues and pale blues. Look for her.

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It doesn’t fit, but I wrote it for the Ragtag Daily Prompt: risque.

Rain song

Thoughts coalesce, precipitate
wet earth soaks rain and turn to mud
snow melts and soaks the bosom of the earth
sun warms, worms break down tattered leaves
what stirs beneath wet brown muddy ground
we listen for spring’s soft slow moving sound

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: precipitate.

Taken in December 2021 in Maryland.

Lichen song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0MvY6m_5yI.

And another: