Clear Skies

No damage from the storms. It looks as if the bad, bad weather tracked south of us. What we got, instead, was a ton of rain and lots of wind.

The rain will hasten a process already thoroughly underway: the garden's regeneration. The herbs planted last year overwintered, and above you can see the sage and one of the thymes. They've come back amazingly strong.

Below, the chard, which I expected to be an annual. But it's growing leaves, so the buyers of our house should enjoy a lovely summer of ruby chard. Those little sprouts all around it are tomatoes. I guess a tomato fell into the dirt last fall and I missed it. Just ignore that little dandelion sprouting in the lower left. I'll kill that today.


And last, but not least, the groundcover I planted last year is abloom. It's the purple spikey plant below:

It's a "chocolate" form of a common ground cover (can't remember its name), and I bought it partly because the brown and green leaves are so shiny and appealing. But who knew it would do this? The flowers remind me of tiny lupins, or very vigorous rosemary. Either way, very nice. And the plants overwintered without any trouble, spread and are providing a nice low-growing counterpoint to the juniper and bulbs.

Next: the peonies. They're all up (including the one I transplanted from the side of the house. I really thought I'd mangled that, but apparently peonies are tough.), and I see flower buds on a few.

Iain's newest discovery is "Nope!" He says it a lot. As in, "Do you want a clean diaper?" "Nope!" and "Do you want a Nutri-Grain Bar with snack?" He said, "Nope!" but when I put the box away he was all, "Heyyyyyy! Noocha Gain Bah!!"

"But you said, 'nope'. Do you want a Nutri-Grain Bar?"
"Yess!"