The blessing of rain

It was wonderful to wake up to the sound of rain this morning falling on the parched grass. I forgot how much I missed it, and the garden will be thankful. It also rinsed the dust off our pretty (but worthless) fig tree. I call it worthless, because thousands of green, inedible figs drop off in the fall along with the leaves, and I have to rake them up or they rot on the ground. This tree is also responsible for John's broken knee a year or so ago during a pruning misadventure. It seems ironic to have such a robust backyard tree that doesn't produce any delicious, expensive fruit.

In the colder parts of the country like Ohio, the fig trees are nursed along in the winter, and never get very big. But they probably produce a little fruit to make it worth the trouble. This tree was here when we moved into the house 30 years ago. Of course it was smaller then, and Amanda had a tree house up there that our old cats "Cowboy" and "Puss" liked to nap in. I like to think about Nova sitting up there in a just few years.

Here's some info on growing figs, that gives an idea of just how much trouble they can be:

http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/fig.html