Blurry view of a field through a rain soaked screen

Adapting to the weather

Leo Edmiston-Cyr

Wow, this has been a wet spring-summer.  Here is the view from my window July 16th... and most days since... sometime in May.

Blurred view of field through a rain soaked screen

Here is a little chatter in the media about our recent weather:

  • Since Maine has already seen rainfall about 200 percent above normal the past two weeks, the ground is saturated with water -BangorDailyNews
  • This June was  the sixth-wettest on record since 1871 -BangorDailyNews

That poses lots of challenges with our short growing season.  However, looking around me, the trees, bushes, birds, and insects keep going.  They find ways to survive with what they have  -- or they don't.  My point is, many do and I want to draw inspiration from those that do.  And honor those that don't by reflecting on and learning from their loss.

This rain has given me extra time to focus on indoor and behind the scenes work for the farm.  Here is a short list:

  • String trimmer fixed
  • New electrical outlet run on side of barn that will house goats in the future and has a (very) small shop for farm tool maintenance
  • Replaced a bad light fixture in the barn
  • Rewired a light fixture in the barn where it was disconnected to add a roof support
  • Built an herb drying rack and enclosure
  • Watched a lot of random, wild plants (weeds) growing alongside my planted annual food crops, while it remained too wet to cut and chip saplings to make more ramiel wood chips (what's ramiel?) to mulch and suppress weeds.
  • Watched some really beautiful growth of newly planted and established perennial herbs even though the amount of sun making it through the cloud cover has limited plant growth.  More in a later post.

That was all before I left for a week.

The break from the usual work and scenery was very welcome.   The fact that there was very little rain while I was away, was good for my time away.  But, I must admit it hurt a little to walk away from the plants during the first window of good weather.

Now I'm back.  Guess what.  ??  It is raining.  So I'm finishing this post and going to write the next one too...  Soon I will be able to weed, chip branches, trim, mow, and build compost.  Fingers crossed.