Thank you for the rain!

I don't know about you, but I was totally energized by the rain we received this morning.  It feels like the sticky summer heat was washed off of me and I feel like I can go out and plant my midsummer plants now.  I wasn't even going into the garden the last few days because the grass was crunchy and it hurt my feet and it was so hot, I'd pull a few weeds and come in the house and collapse from heat exhaustion.  (I'm exaggerating a little...)

Ruby snores when she sleeps. 

I woke up this morning around 4am.  Over the sound of the fan, I could hear grumbling.  I thought maybe Ruby was snoring, so I turned down the fan, and yep, it was thunder off in the distance.  Possibly over the lake...  I was so excited.  We haven't had rain in what feels like months.  And what came in the hours after was that raging thunderstorm of my dreams!  How I have missed thunderstorms!  We got so much rain that both our rain barrels (which have been empty most of the summer) were completely filled and running over! 

Cali watching out the kitchen window for the rain to come...

So thank you to all of you who were praying for rain too.  I'm sure the farmers were happy this morning too.  It was everything I hoped it would be. 

The gardens are smiling.

Nature and all it's practical usefulness

When I first started little gardens, about 20 years ago, I started with flowers, herbs and houseplants.  I just relished my time with plants.  But as I got older and busier, I began growing as income and my priorities changed from ornamental to "useful" plants.  That meant I didn't grow anything that couldn't be eaten, used as medicine, or cut as a dried flower. 

Ruby with the bleeding hearts behind her, encroaching the stairs.

 

Now that I am even older, and I get further into permaculture and sustainable organic living, I am realizing that ALL plants are useful in one way or another.  For instance, my porches around my house are abundant in both pink and white varieties of bleeding heart.  In my "useful" plants period, I'd have dug them up to make more room for hydrangeas so they'd be useful as a dried flower.  It may be that I have more space than ever, also.  I have come to enjoy these plants far beyond what I expected.  They are the one of the first flowers in spring in my gardens.  They bring me so much joy.  They are prolific and spread all over the place, giving shade to the toads, and shelter to the beetles, and beauty to the front walkways.

me, a few years ago harvesting hydrangeas

The huge pines that line our driveway are ugly, but robins love them for nesting and all sorts of other birds do too. 

 

The large pines by the drive.  I find a nest or two from these trees every spring. 

 

Hosta, which is simply ornamental, has a place in my garden now for it's benefits in shading large patches of soil so it's more drought tolerant.

 

The point is, it's so much better to live with abundance and abundance in it's usefulness.  It's just better to "get" nature.  Everything that is in nature has a purpose.  You just have to be open to see it.