Welcoming the rain

Sending you a picture of one of our trees in full seed production, unfortunately none of which are edable! But the seeds look nice when they lift away from the tree: they look like yellow snowflakes.

And what joy it was to hear the rain pattering on the caravan roof late last night. "Thank goodness", we both said in unison, "we can do more digging once the soil is wet".

And so it is that we are continuing to change from indoor UK-townie types, to outdoors, we-need-the-rain-so-things-can-grow people.

You see, once upon a time we would felt piddled off with wet weather. For Lester, it was either a wet cycle ride to work, or a very wet walk, or chancing going in the car which was a mini and didn't like wet weather at all, tending to stop if the puddles became too deep. Plus the on-going stress of whether to have the headlights on, or the windscreen wipers, or the heater because it fogged up inside like a sauna. He could never have all three switched at the same time, because then that perverse mini would go on strike and stop. For me, it was wet dog walks, bringing a very wet spaniel home and having to dry him off before he shook himself all over the carpet.

Now all has changed. The mini is still in the UK, minus us of course, Lester doesn't have to cycle the bike and only has a couple of yards to walk to get to work. The same for me. And we don't have to do wet dogs, because now Boolie doesn't like going out in the rain at all, whereas before, in the UK, he was always out of the door like a bullet every time it was opened, no matter what the state of the weather was. Not so here. Because he is outside all the time, he now likes to be inside during inclement weather. He will actually stand at the door and have a think about whether it is a good idea, or not, to go out.

And so the rain kept falling, all night did it fall. And when I woke up this morning, it was still raining, and with great relief I snuggled back down in my caravan bed, knowing that the rain was looking after our produce and that we could stand down from the task of watering it. I now find the rain a blessing rather than an irritation. It is, after all, part of the natural cycle of life. If it doesn't rain, nothing will grow.

I may need to be reminded of that when we hit the first of the summer storms in a couple of months time!

During a break in the weather, Lester headed off to the compost heap, and was brought to a standstill by the sight of a red deer standing under our oak tree eyeballing him. Another one came out of the woods and did the same. It would seem that they know us because they didn't scamper off with fright. I think they have been watching us. A part of us is troubled by this imminent threat to our food table. Another part of us is smiling at the thought of having deer so close by.

And arriving on Friday was the first of our roof-wood. Two huge beams, which were put in the same day by our stirling roofers.





The wood is now soaked. By the rain it has become soaked. The ground is now soaked. By the rain has it become soaked.

But we are looking good, because according to Meteo France, tomorrow we will have sun and clouds, which means we can get outside and do another couple of feet of digging. So..... although we got soaked today, it was all for a good cause. Because we might get to catch up with Denise over at Malarkey Manor's exhuberant growth rate for her produce. At the moment our tomato plants number five and they are a centimetre tall. The wild flower seeds are coming up, but are only showing two tiny leaves. The potatoes are doing well, numbering 50 plus, the kiwis are sprouting, and everything else is thinking about whether to wake up or not.

However, we do not have to water tomorrow, and we can go do a bit of digging because the rain, bless it, fell on us. Hopefully, some of our seeds will get going so we can get something planted in the open ground. And hopefully the deer will decide to be charitable and realise that perhaps they ought to eat other things, like the plentiful grass, or the ripening fields of oil seed rape.

Sending blessings out to you all, and hoping you have a good week....

PS. I haven't forgotten about telling you about the rotovator!