The Deep Green Wall

I don't remember a Spring and early Summer when it rained like this.  It's made working outside hit or miss.  The ground under the pine trees, where the Creeping Jenny and Vinca Major covers all but dog trails, is saturated.  The big open field between the border of what is the yard of the cottage and what is the lawn of the main house is so wet it's slimy at the roots.  I've never had a May/June water bill so low.  And it's never been this thickly deep and green.  The "creepy Jenny" and Wisteria have grown wings from the top of the gazebo skipping the tops of the Lilacs and up the trunk of the giant healthy conifer to the west where the Western Tanager made it's nest this year.  The vines have topped the Mormon plumb making a tunnel and dripping tendrils from above that require trimming.  They grow so fast I swear if I sat out there and watched I could see it happening.  Three days and it grows a foot.  Like Kudzu, I think.  I must get a handle on it before it swallows my cottage and locks me in.

Baby It's Cold Outside

It may look pretty, all these shrubs bursting with blooms and berrybuds, the green tunnel of foliage, the soft light of an overcast day, but I'm starting to be seriously affected by this unseasonably cold Spring.  I have had one day of good weather here or there to prune the tunnel of pink honeysuckle, to gather the clippings and dispose of them before the rain comes again.  I should be happy for all this rain.  It means I'll have to water less than usual, since the trees are soaking it up. The weather forecast may be pretty good for a week, but two days into it, it turns to unforecast cold, unforecast rain, unforecast snow, as if the weatherperson is just guessing moment to moment and is surprised by it all. It's impossible to make plans to party or work outside.  Or, if plans have been made, to dress appropriately for the possibility of rain, or snow.  You can start the day with the sun shining, wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt only to be searching for a warm sweater by midday when the storm clouds roll in with a very chill wind scatters napkins and paper plates across the yard, foiling one more attempt to have a barbeque and a beer in the gazebo.  So far, the gazebo has gone unused.  The cold puddles of rain water have never evaporated this Spring and are probably breeding pools for mosquitos to plague me all Summer long.

I have weather whiplash.  The sun is shining now, but it's 55 degrees outside and the space heater is chugging away beside my bed and I sit here typing in winter clothes.