A Good Soaking

Generally speaking, it's been a long, dry summer so far. No gentle rains to wash the grit and grime away from the tired looking clover by the road. Without rain, everything outside tends to take on a brown sheen as the wind coats whatever it touches with a fine red dust found only on PEI. The humidity adds Nature's own cement and keeps the wind's painting job nicely stuck to objects. It looks like everything is sweating brown jewels. While the humidity is high, the ground is dry. The plants listlessly sit in the garden remembering damper days. Even my scarecrow looks thirsty.

Well that all changed yesterday. The remnants of some tropical storm edged by and generously dumped a load of liquid refreshment all over us. All afternoon the wind was restless. It alternated between obsessively chasing itself over the fields and through trees then disappearing completely letting the blazing sun broil the earth. I worked in the vegetable garden, pulling weeds, and progressively getting soggier as sweat tried to make up for the lack of rain. Where The Three Sisters are growing I carefully wove the sweet peas around the cornstalks hoping the gentle reminder would encourage them to latch on to the stalks and not each other. The clouds began to make a major appearance, throwing increasing grey patches of shadow to the ground; they ran through my garden and down the road. I scanned the sky for signs of rain. This has happened before; the sky would get all moody and touchy, have a fine old sulk, shed a couple fat drops,then get all sunny and happy again. Basically, a menopausal sky. I top dressed the three sisters with a combo of rabbit manure and compost. Hot and tired, I figured I'd wait till that night to water it in if it didn't rain.

Around five, the sky started grumbling. Rolling complaints and flashes of temper off to the west or southwest, may-be. I think. I am extremely directionally challenged and that's my best guess. If you are giving me driving directions, don't say "south" or "west", it's got to be "right" or "left" or I am going to get lost. Anyhow, the weather was off to my right when I was facing the house from the garden. As I watched the movement of the dark clouds, I sighed because it looked like it was going to pass us by. That's a funny thing about this island. You can watch the rain pour in the distance yet never get a drop yourself.

I had to go pick up my daughter from work. As I drove away, I left the dark brooding clouds behind and entered the sunny zone. Sigh. I so prefer rain to watering. Watering does the job and all, but it's a pain and call me crazy but the plants seem to prefer their water from the sky, not a hose. While waiting for my daughter, I called home and was told there were buckets of rain coming down. I drove right into the downpour going back home. Lightening flashed, thunder followed grumbling about the lightening showing off. Daughter ran inside squeaking only the way middle teens can - kind of a cross between a startled mouse and stepping on a cat's tail. I stood outside and enjoyed. It was cool, it was refreshing and I didn't have to fiddle with the hot/cold knobs to get the temperature just right. The garden shivered and trembled with joy. I swear if the corn could, they would have reached down with their long slender leaves, picked up their roots and danced. Welcome rain, soak in the ground and stay a while.