Friday, 7/6/07

A trio of mushrooms growing out in front of the house.

Another rain shower: Today's shower was later and lighter than yesterday's, but still got the grass wet enough (barely) that I couldn't mow. I returned to my shop in the basement and continued making spoons instead.

Garlic: Jo braved the wet grass an dug our garlic. This project had been bumped back several times because of the weather, but the garlic tops had died back completely and the bulbs needed to be removed from the damp soil before they rotted. The garlic is now supposedly drying in racks on the porch now, but with the high humidity we've been experiencing, that may take a while.

No Internet: Our phone was out again Friday evening.

Friday, 7/6/07

Sunday, 7/1/07

Tomatoes: The tomatoes seem to appreciate the rain we've been receiving, though I'm beginning to worry about them contracting some kind of fungal disease.

Overcast Day: Very strange weather for the first of July. Our overcast skies made it seem more like fall, and while the temperature was warmer than it would be in the autumn, it still never climbed out of the seventies. A temperature at least in the low nineties would be more typical for July 1st.

Still No Telephone: Our telephone remained out all day. I made a trip to the neighbors to make certain it wasn't just us without phone service. It wasn't. It has been reported. I reckon the phone company will get around to repairing the problem tomorrow. I don't really miss the telephone; I do my best to avoid using the phone, but I do miss not being able to get on the Internet. Oh, well, I got a lot of computer housekeeping and bookkeeping done instead.

No Work Outside: Late this afternoon I decided that since it hadn't rained for several hours, I could probably at least get a little mowing done. Jo was going to take advantage of the cooler temperature by "garbing up" and going up on the pasture to pick blackberries. But...... It rained -- no thunder and lightning or heavy downpour, just enough rainfall to get everything good and wet again. We recorded another half inch of rain in our rain gauge over the past 24 hours.

Sunday, 7/1/07

Saturday, 6/30/07

Mushrooms: Wet summer weather has produced an abundance of mushrooms. This one was shining so brightly that from a distance I thought it must surely be some sort of plastic litter along the roadside.

No Phoebes: We're not going to have a second brood of phoebes from the nest on the porch. A black snake feasted on the chicks overnight. I would have intervened in the couse of nature had I noticed the snake soon enough, but by the time I saw it in the nest, the chicks had already been consumed. This isn't the first time a black snake has raided a nest on the porch. Those snakes must have an amazing sense of smell for it to have even known the nest was there.

Limited Work Outside: I got in a little -- very little -- work outside today. About the time we normally transition to working outside, a thundershower was threatening. There was thunder relatively nearby for about an hour before we finally got any rain. I'd decided to tempt fate and and was weeding in the garden when the rain finally began falling. We had a modest little thundershower that only dropped .7" of rain, but took out our telephone service.

Saturday, 6/30/07