a bit drier...

just shy of seven tenths of precipitation in the past two days...

not a lot warmer though...seasonable...which is fine...

the stands of alfalfa are greening and growing..which is good...

because the leaf cutter bee cocoons arrived yesterday...i usually purchase these from a different seller and they do not arrive until june when the weather is suitable for hatching so i was a bit surprised..the disclaimer on the box says they need a month at room temperature before hatching..which makes sense to a degree...we will see what happens and my be learning curve may become a bit less steep...

the winter rye and wheat are enjoying the cooler temperatures and doing well...

while the teocintli is greening at the tips but stalled in the cool...

not the ramps though...their bed is booming along...and while we are talking booming we can talk berries...and tos in some audacity as well...

the last time i looked these two plants had six stolons between them...today i see nine...

the end of this stolon has touched ground and begin to leaf..soon enough it will begin to set roots as well...

and those roots will be going to ground perilously close to a jerusalem artichoke which will be eight feet so in a couple of months...might be time to move the sunchoke or pin the stolon in a future sunnier spot...

so the daughter can have an opportunity to produce blooms and berries ( soon enough ) the way mom is...

the smallest of my second year asparagu splants is up and running at long last...which is good news...all the plants successfully overwintered...

the other two second year plants have already begun to "fern"...

as has the third year plant...they will be feeding and growing the root systems soon...a couple of more years before any harvest...we can wait.

planting

it is a warm may day here...

and i have spuds that are ready to plant...

and this bison seriously needed hilling...

so i covered him up to the canopy...

and since i don;t have a suitable sunny spot where they can go in the ground i put compost in containers...

and planted michigan purple...

basadre...

morene...

and tacna..but the planting wasn't done yet...

when i got home from work and looked in on the teocintli seed i found this...

so i took a hoe to the bed yet again...

and planted the six that were farthest along...four inside the fence and two outside...from the looks of things there will be more...

as i was planting an earth worm wandered through...always good to see...good luck? totemic perhaps...we will see how it goes.

"unusual weather event"

my disagreeing rain gauges agree that there has been somewhere around five inches of rain since sunday..and while that much rainfall has probably accumulated here i am willing to wager it hasn't happened since 2008 when the tail end of hurricane ike caused extensive flooding all around the area...and since five inches of precipitation is equivalent to almost thirteen percent of the average ( yes averages lie ) precipitation here five inches in three days ( three-and-a-half actually ) is not inconsiderable and the evidence is easily seen...

people's yards are flooded...( there's water in my basement too...nothing catastrophic but i have been busy rerouting downspout extensions )...

local rivers and creeks are somewhat beyond flood stage in places...

and industrial fields...

are evincing...

varying degrees of standing water...

and erosion that runs from small scale to flowing across the road...

to what might be considered a gross loss of topsoil where it is overflowing the culverts...so...this really probably doesn't "prove" anything beyond the fact that it has rained a lot in the past few days...this is not the tail end of a tropical storm however...it is the second weather system this spring that has stretched from the gulf of mexico tot he great lakes, precipitating all the way along the front...so..an eleven year gap between events..only their root causes are different...if it stays this wet my spuds will rot in theground and who knows what the jerusalem artichokes will do? i will be watching.