After the rains

We might still get more rain today. Western North Carolina has gone from "extreme drought" to "moderate drought" in recent weeks. A lot of the improvement has come just this week as we've had lots of rain every day, sparing me from all the watering chores in our landscape. And the landscape is responding - here are some of the rhododendron in the front yard -





And this view is looking from the driveway up the slope at more rhododendron just beyond the !vegetable garden!


We decided we'd try to grow some lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, cucumber and zucchini in this patch above the driveway retaining wall. It won't make a permanent vegetable garden - when the river birch and red bud in the background of this next picture mature a little, they will shade the area. But the "right" place in our landscape, on the other side of the house, is very steep and would require some serious earth moving to create terraces. We'll see how we do with home grown vegetables from this easily accessible spot before we invest in the terracing.


We also put in some asparagus roots and rhubarb on the other side of the house, but those should not be harvested this year.


Lu has been indoors all week and welcomed a chance to go out today. I figured he'd turn his kitty nose up at the wet grass and opt to stay on the driveway - I was wrong. He was all for Big Game Hunting -- actually, just grasshopper like insects we always find in the wildflower meadow and the rye grass areas.