The Mountain Thymes

 Rained all night and most of the morning.  Porch is starting to show areas of drying but we can't stain yet because the wet is all through the wood.  No sun again today.  Clouds are heavy and grey and humidity is high.  Temperature is 76 degrees with 81% humidity.  This morning before heading to the gym, I visited the sopping mushy garden and encouraged the plants to hang in there.  This won't last forever.  The zucchini plant is humongous and both summer squash and zucchini have multiple large open blooms with noisy fat bumble bees visiting and pollinating. I commended them for a job well-done and told them to keep up the good work.  The garlic have been removed from my Jacuzzi bathroom.  They are the smallest saddest garlic I've ever harvested  This October  new cloves will be planted in a better area, I hope, with longer sunshine hours. unless we have a wet dreary winter.  Since the soil is so wet and easier to pull weeds, this afternoon I spent time in the garden weed

 I've got empty-nest syndrome again.......... For at least two weeks we've been watching the adult Carolina wrens fly to the porch steps, jump up to the rail, and turn their heads to all four compass points before landing on the window screen and jumping into the geranium box with an inchworm or a winged insect in their mouths. If one of us happened to open the kitchen door and a wren was sitting on the rail, we got scolded. The parents have been very busy jumping in and out of the container gardens foraging for bugs, searching diligently under the shed and the porch from early morning to dusk to feed their five hungry chirping babies.  Peeking into the nest from the kitchen window a few days ago,  we saw the babies with feathers.  It appeared the babies were out-growing their nest and the parents were probably exhausted trying to keep them fed.  I told Cliff the parents' behavior and routine had changed.  They spent more time sitting on porch posts on reconnaissance watchi

 Glad we don't depend on solar power for our house.  Except for a few cameo appearances, we haven't seen the sun all week.  Elsa caused an unstable atmosphere bringing a week of heavy clouds, rainy periods, sudden thunderstorms and wind gusts.  Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were Motrin days every 6-8 hours and sleepless nights.  Wednesday I was so tired that I laid around and whined.......... because I was so tired and had to lie down often.  Today is better, just low-grade shoulder discomfort and whining because it's raining again.  Thank goodness this is Cliff's recovery week because it would have been rough for the both of us.  After we did morning errands, he and I pressure washed the whole back porch and part of the front.  Mother and father wren are taking turns feeding a nest full of hungry babies in the window box so we avoided that section.   Since the birds took over the box and the lack of sun, the geranium roots have been disturbed and the plants struggle to fl