After a stormy night with a lot of lightning and thunder, and a little bit (maybe 0.2 inches) of rain, the monsoon season morning skies are a glittering delight of silver and charcoal ripples and swirls.
Noah’s emissary watches over me as I stretch and breathe into the day, but there’s only been a minor flood where the kitchen roof leaked in the night. A well placed bucket took care of that.
The sunflowers took a little rain, or maybe wind storm battering, but are mostly still standing tall providing endless traffic: first of pollinators various then seed eating birds.
I notice a delicious vanilla chocolate smell on the rainfresh dawn air, and wonder if my neighbor is up early (unusual) and stealthily (since I hear nothing from that direction) making something delectably decadent for breakfast.
Then I realize that I’m doing dawn pranayama while standing next to the blooming Berlandiera lyrata.
It’s not for nothing that this exquisite native daisy is known as the chocolate flower. I want a whole field of them! More chocolate! More vanilla! More of this delicious perfume!
I do have more Berlandiera seed to scatter and it’s probably a good time now that the Little Birds Who Eat Seedlings are distracted by sunflower seeds heads. I think this Berlandiera is a perennial.
The accidental cottage garden is suddenly a cacophony of colour. Thankyou monsoon rains. Many of the blooms - marigolds, zinnias, sunflowers, dill, amaranth and Tithonia (Mexican sunflower) - were self seeded.
I thought I was doing this desert xeric garden thing, inspired by an April visit to Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona. The volunteers outback, however, have other ideas, for this season at any rate.
Ah well. As long as I maintain a bit of discipline amongst the more enthusiastic volunteer annuals, and ensure that there is breathing space for the drought tolerant perennials, the plan is still kinda sorta good.
It is also not quite what one pictures when one thinks of a wildflower garden (which I wanted). But it currently IS a wild flower garden.
I seem to find it extremely challenging to stick to a plan or a style with this garden.
Darwin did point out, after all, that the secret of survival is adaptability.
A lot more rock collecting expeditions are obviously needed.
Because of the price of petrol, Janis truck and I have not been on as many wandering adventures as I would like. Rocks are an essential element in this garden endeavour, it seems.
And I like collecting rocks.