Finally, RAIN!

It was unusually dark when the radio woke me up this morning. A car on the road went by and left a slight shushing sound -- a low volume of moisture on the road. There were no drops beating on the metal roof. The rain, as I peered out the studio window -- which is about where I am when my eyes focus -- was more of a heavy mist, sifting over the hayfield. Ah -- a gentle rain -- much better than a heavy beating, wind-assisted draught-breaker that runs off into gutters and gullies, making things worse instead of better.

When we drove into town to get groceries, we encountered heavier rain on the mountain, but it was still not awful, not a toad-strangler rain.

We had thirty days when the temps in the city were above 90 with about three days over 100. Here in the boonies, we hit 86 degrees consistently -- that's hot for here. The gardens have taken the weather hard -- but somewhere in my wandering outside, I heard little sighs of relief from the seedling trees and the herbs close to the house.

We're going to recover!

Fair Exchange

Anyone who has ever grown tomatoes knows that you never grow "just enough" -- you either don't grow enough -- or you grow too many. Usually too many! We bought nine plants, all of which have survived the drought through the diligent application of water from the hose and the watering can.

So every day I go out and pick the ones that are on their way to ripening, thinking that if I pick them, the plant will be strained a little less than it would be if I insisted on leaving them a day or two more. They ripen fine in the house.

Every day there are more to pick than the day before, so yesterday I took a grocery bag with me and picked about a dozen, only one or two of which was close to sandwich consistency. Having something else to do, I just put the bag on the kitchen floor, just inside the door.

A short time later, Son yelled out that we had company. It was our friend Jexxica who helped out at church last fall with the Thanksgiving dinner. I was really happy to see her as she had been on my mind. She carried a bag which she gave me.

"Pears," she said. "I got them from a trucker who had to empty his truck before his next run."

I LOVE pears! They were not all dead ripe. I picked up the bag of tomatoes and handed them to her.

I'll have more to pick today. See how God's bounty works?

Looking Ahead -- the Year Moves On

I live in Tennessee -- and at the moment, it's hot here! HOT! And it has been for two weeks, at least. The saving grace is that we live in the sticks, without a lot of concrete to radiate heat. We have trees -- sometimes I think we have too many, and in the wrong places. They shade us -- or not -- depending on how close they are to the house, and where the sun is. I'd like some rain.

I'm tired of lugging water to the plants I can't reach with the hose, and the ones I think I need to pamper. And I'm beginning to resent having to pamper them. Seems like every time I water the plants in the "driveway garden," the weeds sidle up to them and steal their water. You can't trust weeds!

In the midst of all this, I'm making quilts. Quilts, mind you! What am I thinking of?

I'm thinking of fall. Autumn. When I can pull up all the weeds, redistribute perennials, collect compost. Okay, so the last part can be a pain, but it has to be done.

Then -- I can get back to my writing!

Up and Running Again

August is a difficult month to deal with, at least for me. It always seems twice as long as any other month. It's hot and rainy, and the weeds take over. I don't want to see weeds, so I stay inside, near a ceiling fan and indulge in my other "lives."

Quilting makes my mind wander. It goes to things like -- oh, the stray people drifting around in my mind. And then I turn on the computer! So that's what I'm up to now -- writing!

I've been working on an old manuscript that needed to mature in my subconscious for awhile. Fester is probably a better word.

These people who can sit down on a Monday morning without a word on the screen and turn off the computer two weeks later with a whole book that was barely a glimmer when they started --well, that's a modus operandi I have no connection with. Wish I could do it! Don't begrudge them a bit. Live long and prosper!

It takes my whole life to write a book -- just parts here and there. Something from 1947, a little from 1958, and 1962 through 1977, most definitely -- it takes every bit of my experience to breathe life into my characters.

So I'm at it again. Today my heroine is having a crisis -- I have to get back to her before she does something rash, or at least in time to help her put the pieces back together.