They call the wind Mariah

Me, I just call it a bitch. Not the light wind that swirls around, keeping the air moving, drying the sweat off you while you’re working outside. That’s a welcome breeze, sometimes carrying the hint of rain in the distance.

No, I mean the 30 MPH sustained wind that gusts to 45-50 MPH, changing direction entirely at random, snapping the plants back and forth, blowing dirt and dust around, and pushing any hope of rain away from our area. When it lasts, literally, all day, for close to 12 hours, it causes stems to break off, some younger tomato plants to be almost uprooted entirely, and blows other things right off their trellis. Like this.

Peas after the winds

Since they’re about to end their production anyway, I decided to try to prop up the battered plants instead of just leaving them lie and harvest whatever I could over the next week before taking them all out. That day’s haul:

Pea harvest May 12

Some of this was used in a stirfry that very evening, and the rest went to the freezer. In the grocery store today, I saw that Publix had snow peas. From Guatemala, at 4.99/pound. Good thing we grew our own.

We also finished up the planting of the front corn plot (four rows x 25 feet of Japanese hulless popcorn) and the back plot:

Rear corn plot May 12 2008

Eleven rows x 35 feet of Silver Queen. In total, we have planted about 1400 kernels of corn. That should be something to see if it all comes up and survives. The soil is so iffy that I’m not holding my breath over it and not expecting a lot, but naturally I’ll still try to baby it through.

Mother’s Day dinner, for mom and for our newest mom in the family: shrimp two ways, salad, rice, asparagus, broccoli and cheese stuffed chicken breasts.

Mother's Day 2008