Strange Day

It's not damaged.  It is supposed to look like this

Yesterday was strange.  The overnight low temperature was 82F (28C).  I went out at just past six to a morning of hot damp gloom.  It was surely like post-Harvey Houston, except without being armpit-deep in raw sewage.  (More than a minor detail, that.)

The past week of fierce heat has scorched a lot of foliage.

 Murky light, thick stifling air.
 Later in the morning we went to the coast where it wasn't much cooler.  The heat felt like an avenging angel.
 A local nursery had set up their annual Halloween store.  It is one of those things that supports the sale of the important stuff (plants).
Or is that entity with a spear the Avenging Angel of Retail?  Sell, or perish!  
 It was great to be out of the house for a few hours.  The long stretch of terrible heat gave me a terrible case of gardening withdrawal and cabin fever.  I felt like this all week:
 We're supporting the sale of plants!  Buy us!
Seeing the prices, my face had the same expressions:
 This store does a fabulous job of displaying this Halloween stuff.  It's a little different every year.  Sometimes it's a dungeon, sometimes Frankenstein's laboratory, with fog machines and the Harry Potter waltz playing over the sound system. 
 We subsidize the sale of plants.  We subsidize the sale of plants.  Meow!
I bought a nine dollar Croton 'Mammy'.  Crotons are fabulous in the San Diego area.  I'm curious to see if it will grow here.  
Late in the afternoon, after a day of suffocating heat, it poured rain for exactly two minutes.  I rushed buckets into place.  
 The water pouring off the roof was black with four months of dust.  But free water is free water.  It gets dirty as soon as you pour it onto the ground anyway. 
Plants were washed clean.  The brief rain broke the heat, and promised cooler weather to come.
It was a strange, strange day. 

Comments

  1. Even 2 minutes of rain would be so fabulous right now. The damn smoke !


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    1. I sympathize most especially. Smoke is agony for my damaged lungs; dear husband has asthma. I hope it clears up for you soon. Smoke is the worst. There was quite a fire in the Sunland/Tuna Canyon area but we did not get any here, luckily.

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  2. Super funny post. Love those expressions of the faces on the pottery and your comments to go with. To continue the weirdness, in the late afternoon the temperature dropped below that of the night before. This morning when I went out it was quiet. No neighbors' rackety air conditioners. So peaceful. There's gardening to be done later, but right now, I am just enjoying the coolth.

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    1. Re rackety AC, our AC broke last Monday, and our wonderful wonderful AC guy came out and fixed it in a few minutes and then spent far longer putting little rubber bits here and there between the outside wire screen and the frame so that the vibration noise would go away. He said Carriers are the ones that make the most noise. Though the rest of their systems are very good, their wire covers rattle like crazy.

      It's somewhat cooler today though quite humid--still what a relief after those 100+ temperatures, eh? Embrace the coolth!

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  3. Fifth picture of you and the avenging angel will have me smiling all week! Those jack o lanterns are cool but the triple-digit price tags are outrageous.

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    1. I'm right at home with avenging angels. Came to me later to have posed holding a plant I don't like with the Avenger preparing to stab it for me. Hmm..what plant don't I like?

      The sign about those pumpkins said they have 18 coats of paint, which works out to only $27 per coat of paint, cheap!

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  4. I'm glad you have had at least those minutes of rain! Here we had non stop rain for the last 3 days and weeds are taking over the garden! I wish I could send you some rain! I wish I could visit that nursery and buy those black cats! they are just lovely! what wonderful nurseries you have there in the US, it makes me a tad envious! Have a wonderful Week!

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    1. We have some interesting places to shop here. Three days of rain, I am trying to imagine that. We don't usually get more than one partial day of rain at a time here.

      Good luck with the weeds! They are the price of rain. :(

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  5. Erk. Those short downpours are the worst, at least here. They just dampen the ground and peg the hygrometer. Weird seeing holiday decorations that don't plug in, light up, inflate, or move. Weird good.

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    1. " don't plug in, light up, inflate, or move" Ha, ha! You said it! Refreshing.

      Here it is so dry and dusty even a 2 minute downpour is cause for celebration by both flora and fauna.

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  6. We experienced the same kind of gray, muggy, hot day but we got a better drenching perhaps. It rained for at least 30 minutes here, starting slowly and then coming down hard and fast. Although my husband cleaned out our gutters just a month ago, all but one of those feeding my rain barrels and rain chain were quickly filled with debris, causing me to run around like a crazy person trying to clean them out so I could collect the rainwater. I was only semi-successful but at least my 50-gallon barrel is almost full. Our weather station registered a total of 0.12/inch.

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    1. Neighbor's trees send debris into your gutters? Where our house is placed the debris piles up mostly next to the garage doors instead of in the gutters. I did at one point before last winters' good rainfall wash a layer of silt out of our gutters that had build up over the drought. A good 2 inches of it all blown in by the Santa Anas.

      I did see on the weather map your area was getting more of a rain than we got. Happy for you! Plants all washed clean! :)

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  7. Your early morning venture around the garden produced a beautiful picture. I know those high night time lows only too well. So hard for the plants not to get a breather when the sun goes down. But the rain came and brought the promise of a cool down. Same for us.

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    1. The high lows are very rare here--we are lucky in that respect--as you say, the plants get a rest from the heat every night when it cools down.

      Hope your weather is better also! It is overcast here but low 80sF, much more bearable than the 100s we were getting.

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  8. I so wanted to go outside and water today, the poor plants got a bit Saturday morning and nothing yesterday, that with 98 and 95 degree days. As it was today was just too intense with smoke and raining ash from a nearby fire in the Gorge. I am going to have to do it tomorrow morning. They're saying we might see rain on Thursday, but there's also a chance of little rain combined with lightening strikes which would be evil. I might have to follow your lead and engage in a little retail therapy, probably not at a nursery though...

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    1. Smoke is so bad for the lungs, I'm glad you stayed out of it as much as was possible. A little rain would clear the air for you.

      Retail therapy is something of a solace when being deprived of the garden. Hope you find an interesting experience, which should be possible in Portland!

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  9. I grabbed my buckets for a few minutes of collection too. Took a small video of the downpour, very satisfying. All hail the water collectors! hahaha

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    1. Well the ocean doesn't need it, so why shouldn't we collect it? :-)

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  10. The heat and mugginess was oppressive here, too. Fortunately today seems to be last day of it. We didn't have any rain but I'm craving it. Everything is so dusty....

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    1. Glad you got some relief, even hotter in your area than here. We're still too hot here, but mid-80s is welcome after low 100s, and a few days of no dust is lovely.

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    2. So weird to think of your area in humid conditions; glad they culminated in some rain. (Kris, special congrats on your substantial shower!)

      Really wish there were a way to subtract moisture from the alarming oncoming Hurricane Irma and set it over the fires afflicting so many.

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    3. I think the humid conditions are becoming more common here. We've been getting spells of them every summer for the past few years.

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