Category: Background

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When I went to the kitchen to refresh my coffee, I saw this little fellow in the new horse field.

Two years ago, I planted some phlox that I got from the members contributions to a local garden show. I was disappointed when they didn’t bloom last year, but at least the foliage looked healthy. A few days ago, I was excited to see what looked like flowers forming, and some of them have actually bloomed now. Since I had no idea what they would look like, I am quite pleased.

I don’t like this variety nearly as much as the other that I planted. Not only do the blooms look bleached to me, but the foliage isn’t nearly as vigorous, and gets badly beaten by hail and windstorms.

This view of our house from the horse pasture shows how the early start of the monsoon rains has turned everything green, at least for Colorado.

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Hap soaks up the rays in this long distance photo.

It is not unusual to have storms every day in Colorado in July. It is unusual to have day after day without any sign of the sun. (Okay, so that is an exaggeration: I think I saw the sun briefly on Friday. I still feel deprived.) There is significant flooding in the mountains, not far from here. Here, though, the apparently unceasing rain has left a dreary mess. At least we no longer have to worry about wildland fires for a bit. Going out several times aweek to scan the surrounding horizon for signs of fire because I smelled smoke was getting old. (Usually, the fires were miles and miles away in other parts of the state.)

When it hasn’t been raining it has been extremely muggy. We are not used to humidity along the Front Range, or that feeling of never being quite dry that I remember unfondly from Maryland and Texas.

However, the worst part of the weather have been the thunderstorms. We lost our power for five hours the other night during one particularly violent storm, and I’ve lost count of the times that I have reset the electric clocks and time on the microwave. Right now, the phone is blinking annoyingly at me.

Three weeks ago, I would never have believed that I could be so tired of rain, when we needed it so desperately.