Monsoon season

I can't accurately describe, or apparently, capture on camera, the performance art of green going on outside my windows these days, thanks no doubt to the endless, drenched gray skies.  If the light weren't so perfect and clear at times, I would probably be gloomily moping around the house, but as it is, I find myself drawn to the door and eventually outside to projects made ridiculous by the dripping weather.  This morning, my neon grass defies verbal description:

 And then there are the flowers--all the blossoms so heavy with rain today:

Geranium...

...poppies...

...columbine...

(and again, can't help it--what a sweet face.)

Even last fall's collard greens get in on the action.

Spring has arrived in force, and I like to take the camera and greet the early ones popping up who blaze the trail for summer. 

When we bought our house almost two years ago, we inherited some perennials in the front that had been a bit neglected and were beginning to unravel into wild tangles of black-eyed-susans (not so bad) and a firmly matted mass of ivy, vinca, and euonymous--three of the four horsemen, in my humble opinion.  [I tend to glare at them when we run into each other at nurseries misguided enough to sell the evil things.  You ever wonder how you appear to other people?  Yeah, let me tell you.  At least you don't make faces at groundcover plants.]

Anyway.  After some digging, seed starting, weeding, planting and deep mulching, the black-eyed susans are under (a bit more) control, we now have a rain garden that relieves the two downspouts from our stoop, the big lovely pine that shelters us to the NW is no longer strangled by ivy, and I have the beginnings of a nice herb & native plant garden tucked in throughout the perennials.





Bought myself presents at a few nurseries yesterday and now have some delightfully fragrant planting to do:  peppermint, chocolate mint, variegated nasturtiums, valerian, eucalyptus, lemon balm, bronze fennel, and rue.  I mean, come on--don't you want to crush some of those leaves in your fingers?  This is one of my decadent extravagances in the spring each year--a treat of splurging on herbs and flowers.  I may lose the battle with weeds in the worst of the heat, but I am a consummate gardener in the spring.

Smells the best when it rains--no wonder I came home with so many.

The rest of the yard is busy with all sorts of flirtation and nest building.  Jason has placed a few birdhouses around the place, and now there is a hard-working and territorial wren standing sentinel in our Japanese maple, all the while tucking sticks and straw into place in the perky blue house.  Since male wrens flex their nest-building skills as part of their courtship, creating several for their lady-loves to examine and approve, I can only hope that this guy's little sweetheart finds the blue to her liking and they stay to raise a family....

In the running...

Not sure anyone has discovered this one yet.

 And, happily, the hummingbirds are back!  Perhaps this summer I will finally get a passable pic of one of these tiny, fearless, glimmering birds--in the meantime, the feeders are out and filled with sugar water--and little whizzing wings signal each approach if you listen...

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In more homesteady-news, I built a nest box yesterday for the girls' outside pen so that I can contain them there without causing an egg-laying emergency.  The last time I tried to shut them up for most of the afternoon, Betty was running back and forth in distress by the time I came out to check on them...and then made a beeline for the nest box in their coop as soon as I let her out.  Far be it from me to keep a girl from a nice dark spot to lay an egg!

SO.  This isn't the most elegant structure ever, but I had several handicaps: 

First, I realized that my stupid drill was in the back of our new truck--which is at a mechanic buddy's getting a new timing belt.  So, nails or hand-screwing.  Fabulous.

Second, my supply of wood is dwindling and no truck to go pick up more. 

Third, it has been raining for years.  Years, I tell you.  Nothing is really dry (wood) or will ever dry (caulk).

 
Of course, rather than giving up and finding something to do inside the house, I persevered...

 

The tarp may not be pretty, but everything is snug

Since the drizzle just won't seem to quit, I have been seduced this morning by baking--warm ovens, warmer smells--another batch of bagels.  I think Jason & I are both a little sick of bread (it is time to be eating crisp, light, crunchy things, after all) and bagels are a nice diversion; a Goldilocks sort of just enough bread and not too much.  This one was still warm from the oven...not to rub it in or anything :)

And now the sun is out--surely there is something else I can find to do outside!