July 29, 2012 Drought

It is such a simple sound. It is a sound that also seems so foreign. It is such a wonderful sound. It is the sound of a steady rain. We have been in the midst of the most serious drought of my garden consciousness. There was one in 1988. To put that in prospective I think I did not get my first hosta until 1989. The swing set was still up and would be up for 3-4 more years. We have had .06 inches of rain for July. (Should that be singular? You would say that we have had 1 inch of rain. You would say we have had 2 inches of rain. Have you noticed that we go through life mostly oblivious to so many perplexing questions?) It has been hot. This week included days where the official temperature got to 107 and 108. I will not dwell on all this as the sound of the rain has continued now for at least 20 minutes. I have been watering, a lot. We have no water restrictions. I can only imagine what it is like to go through a drought where you can’t water. We do have a watering can in the kitchen to catch the water from the sink while you wait for the hot water to show up. There have been gems in the garden in the last few months, amidst the dry. There will be a picture contest this winter. Ah winter. Will we have one this year? We mostly didn’t this last time. Yesterday the cactus bloomed. Several weeks ago it had 3 flowers at one time. They opened before I got up at 5 and lasted until about noon, wilting in the heat. The caladium have liked this weather. I planted about half of the 75 bulbs I got this year in pots. I think in a drought pots should be used a lot.