"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands........" 1 Thessalonians 4:11

Saturday, July 10, 2010

What Comes With The Rain

For the past fourteen days......................
the west Texas sky has looked like this.
Rain.................wonderful, long lasting, good soaking ,
rain.
Thank you, Hurricane Alex.
When we get rain............along comes the great things, like cool breezes, thick green grass, and a slow down on outside work....................and..............
large swarms of gigantic ants. These ants are in the middle of moving their colony................this year ............to our house. They took over the whole yard and the concrete patio was completely covered.................


as well as the outside benches..............with thousands of these winged creatures.

Also, beautiful and unique things spring forth. I have seen many mushrooms on the grounds, most of them are large, round white balls. These soft, buttery, yellow mushrooms came up in a pot that once grew decorative kale.



This has also been a time of harvest. I pulled up the remaining onions and have dried and stored them away.




The cabbage has now formed it wonderful "cabbage heads" and the plants are getting very large. I just love this plant!





The beets have all been harvested and have been passed to a friend who just loves fresh beets. She has reported that they taste wonderful! The seeds to these, as well as the cabbage, all came from Hometown Seeds.






The rain has also given my flowers a much needed boost. Everything along the flower beds and porches looks like this.








The rains are almost gone, although we have just gotten another shower. I watch the storm across the prairie and I feel gratitude to have gotten so much of this needed moisture. How about you? Is your area getting rain, heat, or even weird swarms of creatures? I would love to hear!








16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Kathleen, Such nice photos today. The cabbage plant is so healthy and that is a favorite of ours. I remember Grandma making beet pickles when I was little. Here in GA, we have been very hot and dry with no rain for about a week until Friday night. It was a welcome sight and sound! I love the photo across the prairie. Enjoy your day.

Patty H. said...

Those are big ants! Thankfully this year we havent' been bothered with them. We had a good showere the other day but other than that it is dry. And hot.
Blessings
Patty H

Sunny said...

Hi Kathleen, good to see you posting again. You have been missed!
We need rain here .... everything statrting to dry up, and the grass isn't growing much at all. I have no garden this year so it is not affecting me personally for the moment but the Amish produce farms need rain. Send it our way :)
Have a great blessed day!

Connie said...

Hi Kathleen! It has been pretty dry here. I'm so glad you're getting the rain you need. Your produce looks fantastic. Those ants--oh my! They look huge! We don't have any like that here. Hope you have a lovely Sunday. :)

Gingerbreadshouse7 said...

Kathleen, everything looks so nice and healthy...Rain, blessed rain..we need some awfully bad
The little crops we planted are just about dead from lack of rain..we water, but it's not the same as God's rain...Hopefully next year will be better..Ginny

Julie Harward said...

I love it all BUT THE ANTS...that would creep me out big time! I am so glad you are getting the rain though! We are having a lot of cloudy and a bit rainy days...this year has been such strange weather! :D

Anonymous said...

Love your cabbage photo! And what will you do with all of those beets? Would love to hear.

LindaSue said...

we've had some good rain also here in Central Texas - certainly freshens up the world doesn't it? Wonderful pictures and your garden is doing great - my poor tomato plants are about to rot but today is warm and sunny - same forecast for the week so things should produce again soon. Glad to see you back

Irma's Rose Cottage said...

Hi Kathleen! We also have had alot of rain...the grass along with the weeds are growing like crazy.
Those sure are big ants...like Texas size BIG!
Have a wonderful day!

Irma :)

Vickie said...

Hi Kathleen - Yeppers, we've been gettin' lots of rain, too. Our pastures have never looked greener, and my flowers look great. We had NO rain for about 2 months and I watered my veggie garden every day and ran up the biggest water bills. Then now that the garden is about gone and all picked, we're gettin' rain for several weeks. Amazing!

I'm not complainin' tho. It's kept it from being 98 degrees altho the humidity has been horrid. But that's just part of it I guess.

grammy said...

we have had much more rain than usual
we are very green around here
no swarms of bugs though
are you glad to have the ants?
My girls and I did find (one) praying mantis today (o:

Nancy M. said...

We got a lot of rain today! I didn't think it was ever going to stop until I saw the sun break through the clouds!

DayPhoto said...

WOW! I'm glad for you! Rain at the proper time is perfect!

Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com

Elaine/Muddling Through said...

Yipes!!! That's a lot of giant ants. But your produce and flowers are beautiful. Guess we have to take the good with the bad, huh?

Jody Blue said...

Wild weather up here. The most annoying bug has invaded this area, earwigs seem to be under every potted plant...we are not enjoying them at all! The rabbits ate my husbands beets down to the ground, but we have baby zucchini's so it won't be long before we can enjoy a meal of them.

Suma Subramaniam said...

Such a beauriful post Kathleen. The vegetables and flowers look really good. I hope you are having a good time across the prairie.

It rains the mornings here in Seattle and the sun shows up in the afternoons. We are having a lovely weather:-)