Soaked Down

Things were looking pretty good out in the flower bed on Wednesday evening. The delphiniums were standing tall and elegant; the shasta daisies had just come into bloom; the maltese crosses were making an orange splash throughout.



But then we had a storm last night, the kind that sent us down into the basement for a while after I spotted a swirling grey-black cloud just to the southwest. It wasn't a tornado forming, but we got sheets of hard rain and loud wind and a bit of hail.

I didn't do a close inspection this morning before leaving for work, but tonight, coming home, am a little disheartened.



Oh well. That's the way she be! I'll get out there tomorrow and see what I can straighten up.

Lessons learned:

1) Cutting old, stained clothes into strips to stake flowers up doesn't help in a deadly wind because the fabric stretches. Darn. I thought I'd found a perfect use for that old stuff!
2) I need to buy more arbours. The delphiniums tied to them did not blow over.

This happens every summer. I don't know why I cross my fingers every year in hopes it won't. It always does! I must be one of those eternal optimists. Or it's just the generations (and I mean generations; I've discovered agricultural and gardening ancestry back to the 1400s) of farmer blood somewhere in me. "Maybe next year will be better."

We needed the rain, though, so can't complain, and the downpour was widespread enough to provide some relief to those fighting wildfires up north. Thank goodness. It was starting to look like that battle might never end. On the news today they're saying that all the evacuated residents can return to their communities.