a funny thing happened on the way to... OMG IT'S RAINING

You know that feeling when you're standing in a hot shower, washing away the remains of a dirty gardening day? Those times when you crank up the water temp somewhere between hot tub and sterilize, allow the steam to build, and then wallow in that hot, blissfully humid hug.

Yesterday was a lot like that.

Outside.

A very irresponsibly taken photo while driving to a friend's birthday dinner. It was a strange sensation to have both the air conditioning and the windshield wipers going full blast.

Exactly 100° outside... and pouring.

And OF COURSE... I'd just finished watering the garden.  I didn't even check the weather yesterday. I hardly check the weather in summer, period. It always says the same thing: hot. Hot and dry. Our average monthly temperature in July is 95°. Average rainfall? 0.01 inches. That's basically a single cloud sneezing over a few houses. 

But since yesterday was technically August 1st, I guess all bets were off.

So instead of a sneeze, we got a violent thirty minute pissing downpour accompanied by moderate wind gusts. The wind was nothing compared to what we endured back in April, but it was still enough to snap one of my precious wibbly K'uyu stalks. Consequently, anyone over six feet tall was forced into mason line lockdown.

Mush!

Which made gathering pollen from the tassels this morning like a scene from a bank heist movie, with me ducking and dodging, trying not to trip any of those laser beam alarms.

The tallest White Nighting points accusatorially at me for not trenching them deeper .

Now for those of you living in monsoonal or southern US climes, such a summer storm is probably no big deal. But here, rain anytime between April and October is a hella big deal. Firstly, because we usually need it -- it greatly reduces our chance of catching on fire that week. Secondly, because our ground has no idea what to do with all that liquid, especially when it comes down fast. Flash flood warnings went into effect immediately basically everywhere.

Sure enough, within five minutes of the downpour starting all curb-sides were gushing with water. Potholes became surprise gysters even at slow speeds. Freeways and surface streets transformed into unsanitary slip 'n slides as months of baked on oil, dirt, motor grease and god knows what else lubricated the asphalt.

Lovely run-off from the brief storm, taken about half an hour after it passed.

And that, combined with the triple digit temperatures, made the entire valley smell very strongly of urine and hot rubber.

Which was just lovely.


IN OTHER NEWS -- The first White Nighting silks emerged:

Silks from the first of five ears forming on this single plant.

Although I don't plan to use any White Nighting mothers in the Misty Mountain project, I decided to go ahead and shmear some K'uyu Chuspi pollen on this wild haired thing anyway, and then left it uncovered. The kernels will be a mix of K'uyu crosses and selfings, since only this one Nighting and several early K'uyu are tasseling right now. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see the visible differences between pure Nighting and Nighting X K'uyu kernels later this season. 

And while there's a lot of garden stuff I still want to update you on, there's also a ton of work I still need to get done today. So until tomorrow, here's a picture of Peter pepper mantis on the Paradicsom Alaku Sarga Szentes Pepper. Ten times fast.

'Sup.