Yesterday it rained. I am trying very hard not to make sarcastic comments like ” Rain? Really? You’re kidding.” More rain. Amanda was Kitchen Mama which meant I had hours to spend in the garden and it was raining but I just worked in the rain. All day I was sopping wet. But happy. A whole day in the garden. Joy indeed.
However Camera House was unhappy so this is why there is only one picture. My hands were too dirty for him.
I dug and planted and sowed seeds in the cold drizzle. And weeded and trimmed. If I wait for the rain to stop I am never going to get any gardening done. Naomi was very attentive at her play time and the piglets are still beautiful and Lady Astor is still milking very well but not too much. She can have her calf back (at night) until this weekend then I will shift Queenie’s Bobby and Naomi Across the Way. Aunty Del will stay this side with me for a while.
But we are dripping wet. I feel like we are caught in some kind of science fiction movie where it rains forever and I have no idea how to lift the spell. We had such a lovely week last week and I honestly thought we were going to able to dry out. But the rain is back. Sheila and Manu live outside in their huts and they need new straw but no local farmers can get out to bale straw let alone harvest the wheat – so there is none to buy yet. I am using hay for bedding. My hay field is all flowers. We are not going to be getting on that field anytime soon. I am worried that we may be short of hay this winter. There are a number of rain days ahead. How can so much rain fall from the sky?
But there I am complaining. It is a great year for trees! Maybe I will plant some more willow cuttings they will love all this rain. And a good year for ducks, they are literally floating in the fields.
I have to go out now and load fifty-two chickens ( a good number are roosters) into their travelling boxes.
At least this time I have Jake and the boys to help me with the transport of the birds, in previous years this has been a nightmare. We have quite the team this year. And it is great.
Amanda and I are already settling into an easily sustainable rhythm. She has chicken eggs in the incubator, and seeds in the ground and has already taken over all the satellite flocks. Today I am Kitchen Mama and she will run the farm and gardens apart from Poppy and the cows.
I hope you have a lovely day. Maybe today it will be drier and Camera House will come out to play.
Love your friend on the farm,
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
37 responses to “Gardening in the rain”
I hope the rain stops – it must be a real PITA when you have so much to do 😉
I hate even thinking about a hay shortage, and I am only feeding goats… you have to feed all those lovely cows! Fingers crossed for a drying time. My husband is squeaking out some mulch hay this week, we have a few days with now rain right now.
I too often work in the garden in the rain – just so long as I don’t get too cold, I love it.
Have a wonderful day C.
🙂 Mandy xo
It’s so weird hearing that you have feeding problems because of too much water, when here we are having feeding problems because of too little. Same problem, different cause. I pray you dry out soon, that the sun shoves some goodness into all your crops, that the animals all thrive, multiply and prosper and that Camera House agrees to show some beauty tomorrow. 🙂
I just love those sunflower rows, thanks 🙂 Rain for too many days in a row gets me down, and then I don’t have to worry about hay for feeding animals. Hope you dry out really soon. Laura
Yes, the rain. We have it too. I’m finding myself so mentally fatigued by the idea of dealing with more wet sloshy mud and the garden having been flooded for so long that the leaves have fallen off of everything but the corn, and yet more rain is forecast. We are burning up the calendar of our “summer” stuck under this dark cloud and I hate to think how long next winter will feel for our lack of sunshine…but, yes, the trees are happy! Daisy duck is happy. The grass is super green. And, well…that’s all I’ve got. Hang in there Girlie, we feel your pain.
We got a tiny taste of what you are experiencing. I know what a 500lb tortoise can do to his field. I imagine a cow is even worse! I hope it dries up soon!
i use a fish net on a long handle,i got in fishing department,like they use to get big fish into boat, to catch chickens.less stress on me and chickens
Even with all the rain your gardens look wonderful! It’s so nice to see gardens without fences around them. That is inconceivable here in the Ozarks, as no fences mean the deer gobble up all the plants and thus no garden!
May I have a drop or two of that rain, please? I hate to water my garden but my strawberries are going very seedy!
I hope you’re drying out now. Lovely to have turns at not being Kitchen Mama – I find cooking really tiring these days. Straw may be short, but you may get a third hay crop if it ever stops raining.
Keep cheerful,
love,
ViV xox
I feel as if a soapbox is needed about now, to stand on and complain and shout and rant to all the weather gods as well as humans in general who refuse to see how our climates are all going wonky and changing and shifting. You are drowning. We are burning up. Both un-natural events in our respective worlds, and patterns that are happening around the world. Let’s try some magic MIss C… I will send warm and dry sun rays eastward toward you, and you push some of those rain clouds to the west. Happy days for all 🙂
But the one picture is lovely. Sunflowers make me happy. You should have one more day of rain, and then dry out a bit. I see the few farmers left here struggling, get half their fields baled before the rains start coming again.
I Barbados it is called Liquid Sunshine…but I guess you are not in Barbados….I shall pray for sunshine and dry days for you
Love working in the rain, running in the rain, walking in the rain – some people just get wet, others feel the rain.