Rain, Rain, Go Away...

Come Again Another Day!

Today, Thursday, 80% chance of Rain

Brad is still hiking for Green Trails Maps in the Glacier Peak Wilderness area.  There have been sun breaks, but mostly rain since he left  on Monday.  He is expected home later today or tomorrow and will no doubt look like one wet puppy.    He travels light so packs  a tarp, not a tent, and with so many miles on his tarp it is no longer without holes.  Plus, his mode of transportation is a motorcycle, so once he gets back to his bike, he will have a long wet ride home.  Yessi is back in China, and much missed by us all, but especially Brad who loved hiking with her.

Brad and Yessi on the bike earlier in the summer.
So much more fun with good company and blue skies.

I'm pleased Brad is such an expert outdoors person, so I don't much worry, but I do always want for him happiness and I know being soaking wet will not make him especially happy.  Wet spells:

 U N C O M F O R T A B L E !

and uncomfortable means unpleasant and unpleasant means unhappy.  So there you have it.    I can only hope my assessment is totally wrong and by some strange coincidence it is dry in the mountains while it rains here on Whidbey Island.  What are the chances of that?

Yet, while hiking is unpleasant in the rain, my garden smiles.  The rain was much needed after a very dry summer.  The garden has been thirsty.  I watered, but there is no way I can water the way Mother Nature waters.  For conservation reasons I let the lawn brown out and all well-established plants are left  to make it on their own.  But, new plantings, and I still have quite a few this year, must be watered the first two years or they will die.  So water I must, from time-to-time.

Watering the vegetable garden is always a necessity, but also has high payback.  This month we are eating beets, onions, beans, potatoes, kale, cucumbers and carrots from the garden.  Plus the apples have been prolific -- Mr. Ed has packed our freezer with apple sauce he's made and passed it out to the neighbors as well.  Earlier in the year we harvested raspberries, and more raspberries, along with lots of strawberries and blueberries.   We ate fresh asparagus for two months and the peas were abundant.  It's been a very good vegetable garden season!

Yessi watering the vegetable garden and delighting in the rainbow. 

Back to Brad's adventure in the mountains, I hear thunder off in the distance.