What! It's Raining?

Hard to avoid agonizing over this incessant rain. The five-day weather forecast from Environment Canada reads: 1.Risk of Thunderstorms; 2.Risk of Thunderstorms; 3.Cloudy; 4.Chance of Showers; and 5.Chance of Showers. This is a reflection of the Summer of 2009. The rain appears to have settled overhead and is extremely reluctant to depart. Mind, we had a rain-free day yesterday. Gave me the opportunity to finally fertilize our over-soaked garden pots, to encourage the annuals to bloom unceasingly.

They haven't been doing too badly. Finally, I realize that the countless seedlings that I've been plucking out of one of our flowerbeds for the past several months, were Datura seedlings. I'd left several intact, out of curiosity, taken out the others, assuming them to be weeds (and since a weed is a plant that is growing where you don't appreciate it, they could be assumed to be weeds; that garden was earmarked for other plants) they grew large enough for me to identify them.

How very odd; I haven't had Datura growing there for years. But it is true that I've been plucking those pesky seeds for years, anxious to clear them away to make room for other plants I appreciated more. Nothing wrong with Datura, aside from their poisonously lethal qualities; the flowers are superb, glowing in the night garden and sending out their wonderful fragrance. We had no intention to place them on our dinner plates.

Well, that was yesterday, and nature obviously figured a one-day break was more than enough. Today, although the weather forecast called for a slight chance of a shower, we were privileged to host all-day rain events, mostly thunderstorms, and they rattled the windows and nicely washed any cars left out in driveways. We're merely inconvenienced, shut out of a ravine walk this day.

On Tuesday, along with the continual rainfall, that did grant us a brief opportunity for a ravine walk, we also experienced really rough winds. Not nearly as fierce as those that blew into Mont-Laurier in Quebec that afternoon, logging in at 180 to 250 km/hr that ripped the roofs off about forty houses and sucked up the interior fittings, spewing them everywhere in piles of debris over a kilometre distance.

So, no, no complaints from us. My husband was well able to work inside the garage, despite the torrential downpour, cutting up the wood he requires to begin installing the walls of the new garden shed. On Monday and Tuesday, despite occasional rain events, he managed to install the criss-crossing joists of the sub-floor, then Wednesday the floor itself. And then took care to cover it with a tarpaulin overnight, just in case it rained. Amazingly, it did.

Not last night, but early in the morning, continuing on into the day. Last night, we were out on the deck, admiring the night sky. There was a moon just beginning to wane, and it was low and bright in the sky. Over it skimmed dark clouds, moving swiftly across the glowing face of the moon. I grabbed the camera and attempted to shoot the moon. The clouds, dark and promising (rain) did their best to totally obscure that glowing orb. But I did take a few photos.

As for me, not much opportunity to get out, today. Thursday was that proverbial wash-out. A total wash-out given that it was also laundry day, so wasn't that punny. Still, I did attempt several times to get out into the garden, and shoot some photos, on a few occasions when the rain relented somewhat and was merely drizzling, before returning to full thrust. Wanting to get a few pictures of the lace-cap hydrangea going into bloom and the pink and the white trumpet lilies.

And so, there. There they are. Can you see them?