LOTS OF RAIN / YELLOW ROSES

Scattered thunderstorms brought lots of rain to our region over several days at the end of the week. We were at the farm. The first storm hit Thursday evening, and it just poured for about 20 minutes. As I worked at the kitchen sink, I saw a flash of lightning right near the porch. The subsequent thunder shook the house. We had another heavy rainstorm Friday afternoon. 

The good news is that the lane didn’t wash out, though the ground is soft.

Rain refreshes the vegetation in a way that watering doesn’t. This morning I noticed that the squash and bean plants had grown ever so much since the hot days mid-week.

Mike and I attempted to transplant two young sprouts from under the Lapins sweet cherry tree to our orchard. Mike laid ground cloth and then placed tubes to protect them, but as you might guess, a whitetail took the top off one as she passed through the yard. It’s disheartening, but on the other hand, this is why we like to transplant our volunteer vegetation.

Speaking of volunteers, for years, we have considered how we might entice the wild yellow rosebush located out by the mailbox to grow in our yard, but its stems are so full of spines that transplanting is out of the question. I carefully took a cutting one year, but it didn’t root. As we walked at the pond on a recent evening, I noticed yellow buds at the edge of the water. “What is that over there?” I asked Mike, but he was too far ahead to hear. So, I approached the “yellow,” and to my delight, it’s a yellow rose bush. In my opinion, self-seeding is far superior to transplanting, except for grass and weeds, of course.

Neighbor Pete said homesteaders from South Carolina brought that yellow rose to this country, and it was much admired by the neighbors. When that family moved on, neighbors took cuttings from the bush. So, we do see that rose here and there in the neighborhood.

In approaching the yellow rose bush, I startled the Mallard family. Heretofore, I had not seen the chicks, and they are adolescents now.

Looks like we’re going to have a neighbor at the old Plank place. A great-grandson of an original homesteader is preparing a homesite, and we count our blessings that this “new” neighbor is a friendly young man with ties to the community. KW