in the rain

The rainy season has officially begun. We all saw it coming on the radar. I hurried up and finished the last of my gardening work (wait till you see the pictures!), soaked up as much sun as possible and then braced ourselves. I won't say that yesterday (the first rainy grey day) wasn't a bit... dreary. There are times when I find days like that cozy, but when I feel like the curtain has come down and the next six to eight months promise more of the same, it feels a bit more like dread.

 However, I am reminded, even today, that the sun still glimpses at us in between the clouds during these months. The clouds themselves come in all sorts of shapes and shades of white and grey and bluish dark grey which is all quite pretty in its own way. And the smells are quite decadent. 

I walked in Forest Park briefly this morning. The first smell to hit my nose was Douglas fir, that wonderfully sweet piney scent that makes me think of Christmas or warm afternoons when the sun has warmed the needles that litter the ground, sending their scent into the air. I walked on and was met by the wet smells of earth and leaves and rivulets of water running through ferns and soaked bark and the dry fence that has been watered by rain. The shiny wet leaves of the forest came in all the shades of green, from dark sprucey green to pale chartreuse and everything in between, the occasional burst of vibrant yellow peeking through the branches in places, bringing a different kind of light to the forest. Oh yes... there is beauty here even in the rain. And truly, because of it.

And "my" gardens... I must say that I have struggled with how much to put into them since we got here. Even though I was totally overwhelmed by our jungle of a garden in Boulder, I did enjoy putzing about and learning about plants. In a rental house that I don't plan on being in for a super long time (even though it's already been two whole years!), how much do I put into the gardens? I feel like a bad renter in some ways, but there it is. Finally I realized, though, that every time I had to walk past my weed beds here on my way into my house, I felt disgruntled. So, I did something about them. 

before

after

Let me just say that I did not do all the clearing out myself. Our landlord had someone come do that which was super helpful. And my friend Danna helped me pick out some good plants. But I did the rest: the dirt, the rock walls, the plantings, the bark mulch. I wish I had pictures of the side areas (the gardens with the rock walls) before I improved them so you could really see the improvement. Still... I am much happier every time I come into this house now. However long we're going to be here, that is something.