Rain at last

Last week was more of the same. Rain was forecast for Wednesday, moved back to Thursday, then Friday. We were supposed to get one to three inches. It sprinkled briefly Friday evening, which was cause to celebrate in our house. I slept restlessly all night listening for the sound of rain on the window well cover. I thought maybe I heard a little pitter patter. By morning, though, the rain gauge looked like this. One to three inches, my ass.

The rain gauge Saturday morning. There is rain in there, honest!

We had a bit more during the day. Terry called it 25/100. I think he was being generous. A quarter of an inch after 51 days of no rain doesn’t count. I worked on cleaning up the garden during intermittent light showers. I got the pea trellis and the fence around the lettuce taken down. I raked the straw off the garlic bed and pulled up one row of landscape cloth. The little bit of rain we had did loosen up the earth staples. It also got the landscape cloth wetter than I would have liked for winter storage. I pulled up one more piece and gave it up until drier weather.

One of our watermelons had a dry stem. Unlike some fruits that store starches and convert them to sugar after they are picked (like pears), melons get pumped full of sugar from the vine at the last minute. Once the vine is dead, the melon will get no sweeter. I picked it. It looked pretty good, but was only about a 7 on a scale of 10. The biggest melon still has a green vine. We’ll leave it as long as we can.

The first watermelon

We have had many, many cantaloupe. As is usual, we have been eating all the damaged ones and giving the best ones away. Why do we do that? Enough, I said to myself. I am keeping a perfect, large melon all for myself. Here it is. Good for me, I say. It was delicious.

A perfect cantaloupe, just for me.

My other project for the weekend was applesauce. I made a batch on Saturday and another on Sunday. Applesauce is the simplest thing ever. The ingredients are apples, heat, and just enough water to keep the apples from sticking. There are two schools of thought on applesauce. I am of the “peel the apples first” school. Hilda is in the “leave the peels on and put it through a food mill when it’s cooked” school. My method produced tan applesauce; Hilda’s produces pink applesauce. My method is more work up front and less work at the end. The real reason I peel, however, is because I haven’t quite made the capitulation to eating bugs, and taking off the peel reveals any minor infestations. I did eat termites in Belize, so I’m getting close.

Apples

Applesauce, not quite done

What about the rain? Sunday was cloudless. Again. Our next hope was yesterday. The College meteorologist, Paul, said that front would hold together better and we should get at least an inch. Last night I truly did here rain pounding on the window well cover all night long. This was the rain gauge this morning. Hooray!

Rain gauge this morning--2.4"!

All that rain, and there weren’t any puddles in the ditches by the road. The thirsty soil sucked it all in. I no longer have to worry that it will never rain again. I can only hope that 57 days without rain at the end of every summer is not going to be the new normal.