October 7, 2018 A lot of rain

It is the kind of weather for frogs and toads.

We have been through historic floods in Iowa City. There was 1993. There was 2008. Each caused much damage, disrupting our city and our state. Some of the buildings at the University, destroyed in 2008, have just been replaced, with the new buildings just having opened in the last year or two.

We can all remember  details.
In 1993 there was a very wet June and then again in July. I think there was 15 inches of rain each month. The worst flooding in the neighborhood came after 4 inch rainfalls bookending one week.

In 2008 the flood literally came down the river. We have a  reservoir about 10 miles upstream from Iowa City. It is intended to hold lots of water, and then gradually release it downstream. When a whole bunch of rain flooded downtown Cedar Rapids (which is 25 miles north) the reservoir held off the immediate effect in Iowa City for a few days. Then there was sort of scheduled flooding. There were predictions that the river that runs through Iowa City would just keep rising over the next 4-5 days. It did and there was the 500 year flood.

(I should add that our house is well above the nearby creek, and well away from the river. We are not in danger from the flood, other than the expected wet basement from the rain.)

The question at the moment is are we heading in that direction again.

It has been wet. We had 7 inches of rain for the months of August and September. But it was dry at times. I even had the garden hose out at times when there would be several weeks of hot dry weather.

We had maybe one third of an inch in the first 4 days of October. That was this past week. There were even 2 days of sunshine the middle of the week. I had a trial during that time. One day when we finished by 4 o'clock, that was just in time for the judge to go mow her lawn.

I did not particularly feel it was necessary to check or empty my rain gauge.
Towns to the north of us, one place being Waterloo, has had a lot of rain in the last month. But the rivers from up north come down here. They are full and the reservoir north of town is getting full.
I noticed  on Wednesday when I went to Cedar Rapids, that the reservoir was higher than it had been in a while. The Corps of engineers, who run the reservoir, had been opening the gates a little, permitting  the river in Iowa City to actually come a little out of its banks in places, mostly places without homes.

Then there was last night (Friday) . It had started raining about dinner time, but it was not too heavy. About the time we went to bed it was raining steadily, but not enough to even think about. There was no severe thunderstorm. I did see the radar at one point.  There was one big red dot over Iowa City. In addition the entire line of showers was just coming right through town, going from west to east, with the long line staying over our town.


When we got up there was water in the basement, but not that much. It seemed to have come in through the garage. That meant the water was rushing down the street in such a stream at some point, that it pushed into the driveway and then the garage, and then the room off the garage.

And it was wet out. The wood chip paths in the garden were washed out in places.
Our neighbor Bob asked if I had checked the rain gauge. His only went to 5 inches, and it was full. I went out and checked ours. It seems so official to have your own rain gauge.
It  measures up to 7 inches. Well, it measured  6.5 inches.
We had just had 6 inches of rain in our part of Iowa City in 12 hours of time. That is more rain than I can ever remember. (I was disappointed that the official total was more like 3.5.)
Lower City Park is now completely flooded. The newly raised Dubuque Street is working like the levy it is suppose to be.
But the most ominous sign, is that it is suppose to rain all this coming week.

UPDATE-  It is Sunday morning and I am about to publish this. It is raining.

So how is the garden?
Mostly I am not working in the garden. Days are shorter. Work is busy. And the weekend is wet. I was limited yesterday to a few walk throughs to take some pictures and pick up the biggest sticks. Today does not look like a garden day either.

I suppose it is fitting that with all that wet the toad lilies are spectacular. At this point the toad flowers are all up and down each stem.

Here is one of the nice lines of toad flowers.

Most everything else is fading.
The zinnias took a beating with all that rain.
The anemones still have a few flowers.
Here were pictures taken last Sunday.




This last cactus flower chose last night (Friday) to open. It was not the best choice. But it gamely went through the day (Saturday) , mostly being open.

Julia's recipe

Scallops in Mustard Sauce

When the children were young, they liked scallops. I am not sure why scallops, as opposed to, say, shrimp, but it was scallops. We liked scallops too, and so I have several scallop recipes, two of which have appeared in this space before. Here is another. It is pretty much straight from a cookbook by Pierre Franey called More 60-Minute Gourmet, published in 1981. We have two of his cookbooks, and they contain a number of recipes that are fast and tasty. He is more interested in chicken liver cuisine than I am, but that's a mere quibble.

Here are the ingredients: 3/4 lb. small scallops, butter, 1 cup of whipping cream, wine vinegar, dijon-type mustard, 1 tablespoon of  finely chopped onion (in this case, red onion), salt and pepper.

I put 1 tablespoon of butter in a skillet and when it was melted, I added the onion (1 tablespoon, finely chopped). Pierre used shallot. I don't have shallots on hand. I think scallion or any kind of onion would be fine.

When the onion was softened, I added 2 tablespoons of wine vinegar. Red or white - I had white.

I cooked the onion, butter and vinegar mixture over medium high heat until the vinegar was almost evaporated, as shown.

Then I added the cup of whipping cream and let the mixture cook away on higher than medium high heat, stirring more or less constantly, until it was reduced by half. "Reduced by half" is not an exact term actually. You will have big bubbles and lots of boiling. Let that go on for maybe 3 or 4 minutes.

Then I added the scallops (which I had drained) and a pinch of salt. I reduced the heat to medium high and cooked the scallops for 2 minutes, stirring the scallops so they cooked evenly.

Then I took the skillet off the heat and squirted in about 1 tablespoon of fancy (that is, not bright yellow) mustard. Could be dijon, could be German. Off the heat, I stirred the mustard in, added a few grinds of black pepper, and dinner was ready.

Here it is in a bowl. We served it over little pasta shells, which have the advantage of hanging onto the sauce, which is delicious. Long pasta would work or other shaped pasta or rice.

We make this dish with scallops, but if you have medium (not bigger than that) shrimp, peeled and deveined or crab meat, they would work just fine instead of scallops with no adjustments needed.

This is not diet food, but that is okay with me. If you feel the need for something righteous, serve kale on the side. By the way, Philip says he likes the sauce so much he would eat it on toast, but he always says that. There was enough left over for one person's lunch, but not on toast.

Odds and Ends

The plant sale for Democrats continues on the back driveway. One of the two very large jade plants for sale is still left. If you ever wanted one that is already quite big, this is the time.

This is the bud of one of the cattleya orchids. It does usually bloom this time of year. Maybe it will bloom by the end of the week.

There are temperatures now predicted for the mid to lower 30's for the end of the week, when the rain finally slows down.
I do not know how many of the orchids can stay outside.














The plant migration continues. Some of the orchids will go to the office today
Several big plants went to church yesterday.

I got some really on-sale pansies yesterday. I am not sure when the ground will allow me to plant them.

That is it for me.
We are on the road next week. We will try to send a post, but we will be at the mercy of a wifi that does not get used much.

Philip