Feathers and Flowers: The fairies have gone inside

Saturday, September 28, 2013

The fairies have gone inside

The best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born.

The odd uneven time.

-Sylvia Plath

This past summer, record dry in Seattle, took countless gallons of expensive water to grow flowers like this. (Actually, someone was counting the gallons, in order to send us a big water bill.) Now we're in for free water, big time. Just look at this wet and windy blob out in the Pacific, headed our way.

A couple of powerful wet Pacific storms for late September will
impact the region this weekend. The Saturday system will unload
heavy rain on much of the area... especially on the southwest
facing slopes of the mountains. Another storm will quickly follow
on its heels on Sunday for more heavy rain. Total rainfall amounts
of 4 to 8 inches are predicted for the mountains during the two-
day period... with 1.5 to 3 inches anticipated across much of The
Lowlands.
Read more at http://www.wunderground.com/US/WA/508.html#025GSDiuGxth6mYs.99In a dry summer, it takes countless gallons of expensive Seattle water to grow flowers like this. (Actually, someone was counting the gallons, and sent us a big water bill.) Now we're in for some free water. Just look at that wet, windy blob out in the Pacific, headed our way this weekend.

It's unusual to have major storms here in September. It usually happens later, in November. According to the weather experts, over the next few days we'll get a similar amount of rainfall as Colorado did a few weeks ago. The rivers will rise and possibly flood, but the damage will be far less because the rain will come slowly and our terrain is used to heavy precipitation. No kidding. Still they expect to break some daily rainfall records.

The fairies have moved into the shed for the winter-- their garden is empty and ready for Mary and Joseph's arrival in December.

I did a back-breaking, marathon clean-up in the big bed one morning last week. Coming back from vacation, after a few weeks of neglect, it had never looked worse. Invasives spreading everywhere, bad grass sprouting in good grass, rotting things, falling over dahlias, dead flowers, etc.

All gone. Well, at least it's a "neat" ugly now. But I have to get the beds mulched or the weeds will grow right back. For those of you who don't live here, Seattle is very green in the winter. There's only a few weeks when bad things stop growing.

I'm going to splurge and call Mr Le next week to see if he can bring a big load of compost mulch and have his boys spread it around. I just don't have the energy for the leaf hauling thing this year...