Midsummer

The Solstice was hot and moody. I suggested burning a small bonfire, but before we could, it started to rain. 

It was a big cooling storm with lots of wind.

The sun made brief appearances lighting up the raindrops on the screens.

Today is midsummer's eve and another storm blew through, this time with some excellent thunder and lightning. Still no bonfires.

Gardening

After a dry spell that lasted for most of May, we finally had a week of cool rainy weather. It started with a long deluge. The trees seemed to dance under the rain. All of the greens became more verdant.

I have not been trimming the little patches of grass that I haven't pulled up. They are growing very high. The wisteria has climbed the fence and begun to battle the neighbor's ivy for supremacy.

I am in a strange place with my work. I finished a virtual street art piece that I spent a few months on. I used the Domino Sugar factory to represent a building from a dream. The problem is that the factory is being slowly demolished. I am worried that if I put my piece up while the factory is still intact, it might distract from the point of my piece. I need to wait until more of the building is destroyed.

I am going in a new direction with my Urban Demeter project. I want to plant seeds in empty tree pits rather than put plants out. The picture above is the beginning of a Three Sisters Planting. The problem with growin from seed is that it takes a while and in the meantime there is nothing but dirt, and maybe some small green sprouts. The corn has come up on this spot but it is not growing very quickly. I may need to feed it. Many tree pits have compacted soil which is very hard to work with.

I am in a bit of a holding pattern so I have thrown myself into the garden.

We put some bamboo fencing on the walls of the patio to hide the ugly stucco.

It makes the light warmer.

I love lobelia, even though it rarely survives the July heat.

The milkweed I planted last year has come back. The plants are growing every day, one really tall, the other three smaller.

This is one of the beds where I planted flowers to attract pollenators.