A tiny bit of unexpected rain

The day started off with red skies ..., sailors take warning? We did not think much of it until it darkened over around 3 this afternoon and we heard distant thunder. As all Arizonans we are sure that the rain always falls elsewhere, but we did get some drops out of it.

These early storms usually start out with a good bit of wind and a dust storm. If that is not enough, the animals go a bit crazy too: Cody and Bueno were running around like very silly horses. Don't strain a fetlock, boys!

The plants are going to love this, in and out of the garden!

A little jaunt

We were in New York City for three days last week, celebrating a wedding anniversary and checking out a new camera lens. When you live out in the country and you are limited to Internet shopping and miss the touchy-feely thing, it is fun to come up with these types of excuses 😄. For me, a vacation is also about the food as we have little opportunity to go out to eat: I looked forward to good pizza, good hotdog, good bagel, that type of thing.

Dan had never been to New York and it had been years for me, while I was working. My colleagues had shown me a great time there though and I did not need much convincing to go back.

We stayed at the Wyndham New Yorker in Midtown and I highly recommend this hotel. Centrally located, quiet, caring staff. I had done homework and had planned the days according to the weather. We were very lucky two of the days so we walked and saw the main sites. These photos are but a small sample.

The last day, one planned for the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan, we got soaked like  we have not been in years but even walking between buildings through Central Park was memorable.

We had a great time and will go back to enjoy that city's energy and cosmopolitanism, where English is a minority language. How refreshing!

Planted!

It took some careful planning, cooperating weather, and special tending by my sister-in-law while we were vacationing in Florida, to allow me to plant the garden over the last two days. It makes me smile to be able to do this in mid-April as I planted the garden over Memorial Day when I lived in Oregon ( aka the land of the green tomato).

So far, things look good. I took some extra precaution with the bean seeds (double hardware cages) as they seem to be prime sustenance for the wildlife.

As for keeping out rodentia ...., we will see. When the nights were still too cool outside for my tender seedlings (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant), we brought the flats into the garage where I thought they would be safe. One flat was stored on the hood of our 4x4 pickup, the other on the freezer. Then a mouse got into the eggplant and nipped the growing tip and ate several dill seedlings. If a mouse can get on top of a truck and a freezer, I doubt there is any place that is safe from gnawing teeth, including my lovely, well-protected, metal-and-hardware-cloth-fortified, garden.

The mouse, meanwhile, has been life-trapped and relocated far, far away.