Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Rain

We have had a very dry July and August—until yesterday. The creek that runs past our house had shrunk to a mere trickle about 2 inches deep and a foot across—until yesterday.

Yesterday, we received 5.5 inches of rain in about 22 hours. But, the ground was so hungry that there are virtually no puddles. Of course, not all of it soaked in; some of it ran off. I checked the creek last night, before it was done raining, and it had swollen to the tops of its banks. It had become a 5 feet deep, 15-20 foot across, swiftly flowing creek that would be difficult to ford. When we took our walk later, under umbrellas, we crossed the bridge and heard the wonderful sound of water flowing strongly under it. I missed that sound.

Our garden soaked the rain up like a sponge. We had added about 6 inches of composted leaves in the spring; that compost is always thirsty.

Because the temperatures stayed warm, the tomatoes are finally starting to ripen. I picked a few Big Girls, two Beefsteak, a couple of Romas and quite a few cherry tomatoes. We have two different kinds of cherry tomatoes this year: the normal small ones, and then some that I call cherry tomatoes with an attitude. They are about twice the size of normal cherry tomatoes; I sliced some of them into thirds and used them on my sandwich—fresh whole wheat bread with homemade pickle relish and a slice of cheddar cheese. Life is good :)

4 comments:

Joel and Renée said...

I believe those "cherrys with an attitude" are called grape tomatoes...? Our first cherry tomato ripened yesterday!

jps said...

I have grape tomatoes, too, I just forgot to mention them. They are bigger than the cherries with an attitude.

We have only been eating cherry tomatoes for about a week here, so you aren't much behind us.

Dad/James

jps said...

Oops. I meant plum tomatoes, not grape. The grape are smaller than the cherry, but the plum are larger.

dad

Andy said...

No puddles, eh? Lucky you...