In A Wet Garden

After a much needed respite over the holiday, another days long monsoon flow has parked itself on top of the mountains. I don't mind rain. Incessant, unending rain, however, mars my enthusiasm considerably. I could be out there doing things.

At least there is something to look at when I am trapped inside.

In drier times while moving to and fro with loads of bricks and gravel, an unusual speck of green caught my eye. Bulb foliage. I had forgotten/given up on these lycoris bulbs that were brought north from my grandmother's garden in Florida. After eighty years, their internal clock was firmly set to a different kind of winter schedule.

The leaves would emerge much too early, thinking they were still in Florida, only to be completely frozen by a North Carolina winter. Adapted lycoris bulbs would wait until spring to send up the leaves. The bulbs never stood a chance of packing on enough energy to bloom, much less live. I figured they were goners.

After three years, I am quite surprised to see they are still trying. In this oddly warm start to winter, this is the most foliage I have seen them produce before getting zapped. They have come up in all four places I planted them. A small bit of hope remains. Can a bulb learn and reset its internal clock?

At least the rain is washing all the rock dust off the new gravel and dirt off the rearranged rocks on the basement patio. I have things I could be doing though.

The note did say please, but I was still annoyed. Talk to the NCDOT. Road repairs are not my job. My job is the scenic part. Yes, the deep rut in front of my mailbox is very unpleasant. I drive through it too. I have not filled it in because every time it rains, the runoff from the byway channels right though there. That's what made my rut.

Lucky thing I am nice and have a pile of gravel that is marginally less likely to wash away in the next downpour to fill in that rut. I really have to look at ways to redirect the water from the state owned highway that flows onto the state owned shoulder that is making a deep rut in front of my mailbox.

My little washout is nothing compared to other bad spots along the scenic byway. We are talking chasms in other places, the kind where byways can collapse.

Yes I will fill in the area in front of my mailbox when it stops raining with a couple of loads of gravel. If that washes away, call the DOT.