It's Going to Rain All Weekend

The delicious scent of my vibernum is everywhere.

I am not a photographer, but I can play with the adjustments in my iPhoto software and create some pretty spectacular images. A push, a tweak, a little saturation, some added exposure, a tint, some definition and Voila! Check out my pretty vibernum picture. It looks almost as it does in real life, maybe even a little better? (The image fails, however, to deliver the intoxicating scent of this delicate bloom. It rides on every little breeze.)

I wish I had an extra effects tool for the weather, though. Today, heavy showers. Tomorrow, the same. Over at the community garden yesterday, I hurried to get all of my share of the compost—one cubic yard—into the plot. The compost was delivered to the driveway outside the garden and had to be shoveled into my garden cart and pushed over the wood chip paths and then dumped carefully into the plot so as not to spill into the other plots or onto my central path. I snuck away from work because I knew I wasn't going to be able to get it done on the weekend, thanks to the weather reports.

After it was all done, my friend Anne said, "Aren't you going to plant anything before the rain comes?" Her plot is already neatly growing in rows some onions and parsley and lettuce and even a couple of artichokes that hadn't perished over the winter. Well, no. I wasn't going to plant anything until we had some water in the cistern. But it was going to rain. Hmmm. Change of plans. I could sow some seeds. But I had a party to get to and I needed to shop and shower. So no, I didn't plant.

This morning, though, with the windows open and the birds calling, I woke early and didn't hear any rain. Wasn't too long before my sleepy thoughts turned to gardening. Never mind, that Patsy went out last night and hadn't come home. Pshaw, why worry about absent daughters when I could think about seeds. So I got up and took the dog out, bringing my camera and even before I'd made coffee, I was out in my garden taking photographs and studying the sky. The birds were especially noisy, obviously trying to tell me something. But I wasn't getting their message. A little like the weather forecasters. Rain today! Rain tomorrow! Weekend washout! Maybe! We think! Well, At Some Point! Could Be Just Occasional Showers!

I mean I had plans, people. I was going to not think about gardening this weekend. I was going to read the newspaper. Think about other concerns. Do yoga. Maybe some planks. Get caught up on housework. Watch some basketball with Jim. Go somewhere with Patsy. No, Anne, I'm not going to plant something!

Well, maybe, just a few seeds. Before the rain comes. If it does. Anyway, I can't control the weather, but I sure can crank up the dials on my iPhoto and distort my plants into some crazy-ass images. Here's what I did this morning under a forecast of rain. The Putterer