The Calm After The Storm

Although we do get a lot of rain here, we don't generally get any major weather 'events'. 

Saturday afternoon we did get one of those rare events, or at least what counts as an event for us, and it doesn't take much for it to be classified as such:)

Being a Saturday, it was a market day. This market only takes one person, so I went and then Larry came an hour before the end. A chance for me to have a bit of a look around the market, and it's always nice to have someone there to help you pack up, especially if it's hot.  We are still waiting for the 'hot'. 

 He took over for me, and I wandered off with my bucket and pruners down the nearby railway sidings, to see what wild stuff I could round up.  So a bucket of foxgloves, daisies, and branches of some shrub thing that looked a bit like a droopy astilbe flower before the buds have popped, plus a few other bits of 'stuff', was carried back to add to whatever few flowers I had yet to round up at home.  I only take flowers to the Sunday market.

After we had packed up at the market, Larry headed home with the truck and trailer, and I headed to the fabric store and then my favourite thrift store.  We had lucked out with the weather, and it had been dry and decent at the market, with the sun eventually coming out. 

At one point I glanced out of the windows, and 'Holy Sh*t', I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The weather had been fine when I walked into the store.  It now looked like one of those news shots from a hurricane zone in Florida.  The rain was blowing in sheets at a 45 degree angle, the trees were bending at the same angle, and there was thunder and lightening, although they weren't really obvious because the clouds and rain were just about drowning them out.  Eventually I had to leave, and my car was parked on the other side of the street.  I even checked to see if the thrift store had a cheap umbrella I could buy to get me there, but there was nothing that I wanted to pay money for. 

 On the way home I stayed off the freeway, and tried to pick routes that didn't have a lot of tall trees next to the road.   There were lots of small branches on the pavement, and some areas were starting to flood.  When I arrived here, the power had just gone out, and Jake was a shaking, panting little dog. He does not like wind, and thunder even less.  I fashioned a sort of 'thundershirt' for him out of some stretchy ribbing fabric, put a tight dog coat on him to hold it all in place, and made a den for him in the smallest crate covered over to make it dark.  He stayed in there and came out later after the storm passed looking much happier.

By that point I wished I'd been home earlier and picked what flowers we had before the rain hit.  I was a pleasant surprise though to see that they had all survived, and after it dried up a bit, I went out and cut what there was.  Even the tall delphiniums and the monkshood were still standing.

And while I was outside, the power came back on, and all was well with my world:)

                                                

They did end up being rather big bouquets, and but sometimes you just have to keep adding flowers to make it look right.  With those big tall spikes in the middle, there had to be enough at the bottom to balance them out, as I didn't have enough of the right flowers to just make it just a tall bouquet.

Very 'countryish', that's for sure!

We ended up bring one home with us yesterday afternoon.  A lady paid for it, and said she was coming back for it later, but never did. 

Here it is in one of my dad's pieces of pottery, being hit by this morning's early sunlight.