rain, almost

We’re located far enough south that the mon­soonal influ­ence that brings August rains to the desert south­west can some­times make itself felt. But we’re far enough north that the effect is mostly some­what more humid days but very lit­tle or noth­ing at all in the way of actual precipitation.

Yes­ter­day after­noon I was on the com­puter, play­ing a game of Tetris, that time-sink that raised itself in my con­scious­ness again now that media out­lets were cel­e­brat­ing its twenty-fifth anniver­sary. For a few sec­onds there was this noise out­side. Rain?

Raindrops on step

By the time I paused the game and made it out­side most of it had evap­o­rated, but I did man­age to see a few drops left on some steps. It was enough to make it into the weather report as “a trace” of rain, but noth­ing to add to the 0.0 inches rain­fall total since the start of the July rain sea­son or 3.1 inches since the start of the year.

Sunrise clouds

A trace isn’t enough mois­ture to mean much to the plants, but the weather pat­tern made for nice clouds for the sun to col­orize this morning…

Moon rising

…and a nice moon­rise last night. (Sun­set a few min­utes later was great, but I don’t take my cam­era every­where I go.)

We’ve been think­ing about get­ting ready for a few days away to see some fam­ily in the Sonoma Val­ley. A lit­tle rain would have helped with the prepa­ra­tions by reduc­ing the areas I’d be hand-watering in prepa­ra­tion for being away. There’ll be some­one tak­ing care of the house, but it would be a lit­tle much to assem­ble detailed water­ing instruc­tions or to ask them to climb a short but steep bank of loose dirt with a water­ing can to attend to some plants that are still get­ting established.

At a time like this I real­ize that this is a gardener’s gar­den that requires selec­tive atten­tion to dif­fer­ent plants. Most of the plants are grouped by water needs, and two sprin­kler heads and a small drip sys­tem take care of the thirsti­est plants. But the occa­sional new plant mixed in with estab­lished plant­i­ngs requires indi­vid­u­al­ized attention–mostly in the form of extra water, usu­ally deliv­ered by hand. So I’ll be work­ing through a short list of water­ing chores to fin­ish before leaving:

  • soak the pot­ted plants
  • soak the new plants scat­tered around the garden
  • give the veg­gies a good drink
  • visit the water store for 5 gal­lons of water for the bog plants
  • water seedlings and cut­tings in the greenhouse


Scooter recumbent

And there’s one final impor­tant thing to remem­ber: Put cat food out where the cat sitter–but not the ants–can find it…

August 04 2009 08:28 am | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: •

5 Responses to “rain, almost”

  1. tina on 05 Aug 2009 at 5:54 am #

    Ants just love cat food for some rea­son. My cat lives outside-as does her food. Unfor­tu­nately she is picky and does not like the ants but we make do. I know you must have been excited even to see the few drops of rain. When we finally got rain last sum­mer after two months of none every­one came out of their houses just to watch. I think even a few drops help plants as it adds to the mois­ture in the leaves and even humid­ity helps out. Have fun on vaca­tion and your gar­den will sur­vive with­out you. Do not waste time wor­ry­ing about it.

  2. tina on 05 Aug 2009 at 5:54 am #

    Wor­ry­ing about it when you are gone I meant to say. Get it ready now for sure.

  3. Lynn on 05 Aug 2009 at 7:33 am #

    Grow­ing up in El Paso, we called it a 10-inch rain. Drops 10 inches apart! At least you had the smell of rain I hope. I hear you on the selec­tive water­ing. Even after the wettest recorded June since 1903, I fret­ted about leav­ing for 10 days in mid-July. But there are some things you just can’t ask your helpers to do. Enjoy the time away know­ing you’ve done your best!

  4. lostlandscape on 05 Aug 2009 at 9:13 am #

    Tina, I love watch­ing the rain, and the first rain of the season–or after a long dry spell–will pull me out of the house to watch it. For most plants, warm and humid ver­sus warm, windy and dry is prob­a­bly a bet­ter sit­u­a­tion to be in. Our dry­ing winds in Octo­ber get me water­ing in the gar­den more than these sum­mer days.

    Lynn, really funny about the 10-inch rain. I hadn’t heard that one. I’m almost done with the prepa­ra­tion water­ing, so vaca­tion should be a no-worries deal. Gosh, I’m even look­ing for­ward to the inter­est­ing fam­ily dynamics.

  5. Steve on 05 Aug 2009 at 8:22 pm #

    Gor­geous pic­tures, James. And a big ha ha on the “fam­ily dynamics!

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