Holding on

There’s got to be a morning after.

We held on through a night of fierce monsoon storm on Sunday.

At sunrise Monday I did a walkabout and damage assessment to find it isn’t as dire as it seemed like it was going to be during the storm.

A lot of silt and rocks in the street.

Within the garden: major casualties are the sunflowers out back: the Queen and her consorts.

Snapped off at ground level.

Small wonder since they towered way above the house, competing with the cottonwood to touch the sky, as can be seen in this picture taken a few days before The Storm.

The Queen is gone! Long live the Queen!

Even in catastrophe the Queen was gracious, laying herself down neatly alongside the heirloom San Mazarno tomoto and the very young grape vine, not damaging a leaf of either.

I have seeds saved from this magnificent stand of sunflowers. The genetic material will live on next season. In the meantime I have vases of sunflowers everywhere.

In memoriam: Vincent.

Sweet corn is laying a bit low. It’s a grass. Within a few days it had mostly recovered.

My intention this week was a bit of clearing and trimming anyway.

But first to lift the debris off the growing things and redirect it to the compost heap. I spread the sunflower seed heads out for the birds.

Although initially confused by the disappearance of the sunflower grove, the little tweety birds were ecstatic when they discovered what had happened to their seed buffet.

#6thavenueshala