Rains on the Plains

 "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" - song title from the musical "My Fair Lady"

I don't know about rains in Spain, but around here lately, you could re-write the lyrics of that song to be: "The rain around Hathaway falls each and every day."  Not really, but it sure feels like it.  We actually live on the border of Hathaway and Jennings, but I couldn't think of a word that rhymes with Jennings.  It has been an unusually long, cold, dreary winter and I have cabin fever.  I'm ready to get outdoors in the garden and take on a few projects that I have on my (ever-growing) list.  But the rain keeps falling and falling...

I got out and raked the leaves out of the shallow ditch that flows through our property to allow the runoff to make its way to the roadside ditch.  This drainage didn't exist when we first purchased the property and any rain transformed the land into a muddy mess since the neighbor's rainwater all funneled through our land, so we dug a slight watercourse to channel the water off the property quickly.

Runoff from Sunday's 2.3 inch rain

The water was really rolling under the bridge turbulently, especially once I raked the leaves out of the way.

This photo illustrates the point about the water backing up on the property, turning the pasture into a swamp. See what I mean about it being dreary and grey and gloomy?  I wouldn't be overly concerned about it, but...

We have all those meat birds out on the pasture.  They don't like cold weather and they don't like to get wet.  97 wet birds standing in the mud and other unmentionables don't smell nice.  If they get wet AND cold, they start dying.  In fact we lost two today to the rain and the cold, so we're down to 95.  I'm a couple of weeks away from butchering them and I don't want to lose any more of them now.

If this was a Scratch 'n Sniff picture, you'd be gagging right now!

Enough of the dreary, somber, dismal talk.  If you look hard enough, you can always find something bright and cheery, even on the most overcast day.  Take a look.  In our flowerbed, I spotted this hyacinth that popped up for the second year in a row. Very pretty!  The fragrance it throws off is very strong.

Beauty

Here is another flower, but this time from a tree in our yard.  No leaves on the tree, but the bare branches are loaded with pink blooms.  Can you guess what it is?

Raindrops on blooms

These are blooms on our peach tree.  You are looking at the makings of a future peach cobbler that will be topped with some homemade ice cream.  We have several of these planted around the yard that have grown from seeds in our compost pile. 

Peach blooms

Here are some blooms off another bush in the yard that are about to open.  Raindrops cling to the blooms.

What are these?

They are blooms on our blueberry bushes.  We have 12 bushes in all and each year they've produced more and more.  A warm blueberry muffin right from the oven is heavenly.  That would be tasty right now, but I've got to be patient.

So while we wait for things to dry out, we can look forward to crops that we'll plant and vegetables, fruit and berries that we'll harvest and consume in just a few months.