Rain, Mud and Gravel

I should be thankful for rain. It usually means the temperatures are at a decent level. Warm. Of course there is freezing rain. Freezing rain occurs when snow melts as it is coming down from the atmosphere, hits cold air, then freezes as it touches down on something. We call this phenomenon a 'Silver Thaw' here in the Willamette Valley. Last year we had a nasty silver thaw. The icey rain lay so heavy on several of my trees, they were literally up ended. I'm talking roots stabbing the air. It was awful. Two other trees, my Golden Cypresses were badly damaged. One was left leaning horizontally against the Westeria arbor some distance away, the other snapped in two. I was in anguish. It's taken several years for them to grow to a size where they could make a bold statement at the end of my reflecting pool. I nearly chopped them down in a rage. In the end I only shrugged my shoulders and let them be. We gardeners are, after all, no better than glorified farmers. We are subject to the whims of nature. Disaster visits our gardens and we press on. I am now thankful I left nature take its course. I did do a little clean up, trimmed the ragged edges of the Cypress that had snapped in two. In a few short months, one season. The pair of them staged glorious come backs. The broken Cypress grew into a fat, healthy, speciman, albeit, a little short, and the other lifted itself off the arbor and straightened out on its own. It began with the tip bending slightly upwards towards the sun, and then little by little the lower parts joined in, and viola! A garden miracle. It was standing straight. . . . I did consider cutting it down to match its fat partner, then quickly changed my mind. There is charm in the asymmetrical. . . . We had freezing rain yesterday, and the day before. I took a quick stroll around the garden this morning. I didn't find any damage. Today it's still raining in intervals, but it's warm. Yes.

I'm in a tizzy over the state of the driveway. As a temporary measure my husband dumped a truck load of gravel to keep the mud down. I believe I mentioned in my last post that we have been under some pretty heavy constrution. I had this brilliant idea that we should get rid of part of the asphalt and put in a cobblestone courtyard outside the kitchen door. As it turns out we are short on money and the project must wait. The gravel has worked out fine, until the fence guy tracked in sticky, clay mud from the back yard where he was working. I was back out in the rain later in the day racking gravel, trying to get the slick, clay bits buried so it doesn't get tracked in to the house. . . . Are we having fun yet?