Monsoon time

Like a horse, with nostrils flaring, we welcomed a couple of rain showers the last few days. Thankfully they delivered good amounts of rain, rather than some miserable piddle and a lot of lightening instead. Yesterday's storm did come with thunder and lightening but gave us more than half an inch.

The garden is doing well and plants that looked to be on their way out happily put on more blooms, such as the melons and eggplant, or were able to fight off a virus that threatened them. I had just put additional tomato plants in the ground and that should keep us in lycopene until the holidays.

Fruit trees are happy too. We have eaten the peaches off the early tree and are awaiting the next batch to ripen in another week. The apples are doing great, in spite of attempted assaults by a javelina and possibly 5 piglets (saw them come onto the property very early yesterday). We fortified the trees with garden panels and so far we have been more persistent than they have. The rain dumped a number of ripe apples which are being enjoyed by horses as well as wildlife.

One casualty however. The agave that has been blooming by the horse barn and has been a favorite of bees and hummingbirds was snapped in the wind yesterday. The bees were not happy this morning as the plant would have bloomed for many more weeks.

Here is the flower in all its majesty.

And here is the sadness.