Monday, September 14, 2009

Rain?

I always laugh when I read Heather's blog as she is usually doing/thinking the exact same thing as me. In a recent blog entry she talked about leaving things in the ground till the last minute - in the hope that they might produce one more vegetable before the seasons change. I am exactly the same. I have been weeding around sickly tomato plants hoping for just one more flower to turn into a tomato, green pepper plants that the tiny little pepper might just grow a few more centimeters and be able to be harvested etc. But today I gave up on basically everything from the summer after my father in law offered to get the tractor in and plow the garden for me. The thought of doing it all by hand was just too much for me! For the first time ever I also didn't protest when my mother-in-law made some vague statement about me not being able to dig the
trenches in between the rows in the garden. Usually this kind of comment would make me determined to prove her wrong, but this happens to be incredibly back breaking work for me and I can never make the rows straight - not that I care, but my father in law is a bit of a stickler for straight lines! So anyway, not only did they end up digging all the trenches for me while I was away at piano with the kids, but my father in law also got the big rake thingy and made all the rows completely level (the photo is before all this work was done... it was too dark to do anything after we got home). Now all I need to do is plant all the autumn veges and try to keep the weeds away...
While I was clearing the last of the summer stuff away I was joined by yet another snake. (fortunately not a poisonous one). And then when I went to get the spade (not to kill it) another snake (I know it wasn't the same one as they were both in my vision at the same time) slithered across the road in front of me. I think the worst thing about snakes is their silence. After returning to the garden the original snake snuck up on me in the tunnel house and then again in the pumpkin patch - I'm sure it felt like I was sneaking up on it, but it definitely felt like it was following me! I mentioned to my mother in law that I had seen a number of snakes and she declared that it meant that it was definitely going to rain. I learn something new about snakes from her every day!


2 comments:

  1. I like snakes! NOT poisonous ones of course but I think they are cool. We have them in Hokkaido but I've never seen one in our garden. I think we are in too built up an area for them, though there are snakes seen on the road just along the edge of our housing area.

    My veggie garden is looking really fleabitten too and just needs yanking out of the ground. It was really pathetic this year, the ground is just so poor. Got to improve it!

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  2. Ohhhh I want to borrow your FIL.... and he does all that and doesn't insist you need plastic mulching? A treasure! Do you have more than one field or have you already harvested all your guest planted sweet potatoes? We only planted 6 this year and they have taken over a good corner of the garden and I keep thinking of you and your crop.

    It really is kind of funny how we live so far apart yet our lives mirror each others in so many ways, hey?

    My neighbours all love snakes as they eat the mice who eat the apples. Haven't heard about the rain thing though. Did it come true

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