We got the stone lantern yesterday. It is so perfect for the scale of the garden. We set a tealight in it last night, and sat out there and just had a quiet drink in the garden after dark, both a slightly somber occasion, remembering family, and a happy one. It’s just exactly what we wanted. There will be pictures.
This morning I was determined to have our usual breakfast outdoors with our beautiful lantern, and I had just carried breakfast out to the pondside when it began to rain…a northwestern rain, just sprinkles. So Jane came out with her water and my coffee, and looked dubious when the rain began to get a little stronger.
“Is this ok?” I asked. She’s a northwesterner born and bred, used to rain. I’m a southwesterner, to whom rain is a wonderful thing.
“Sure,” she said.
So we ate before the toast got soggy. And fed the fish, who were getting bombed with water drops when they came up to make their demands known. You have to know, fish have sense enough to come in out of the rain: they refused to surface for the food, this morning, just waited for the raindrops to beat it down into the water for them.
We urgently need to call Lynn and get the codes for the site. We were so distracted by the arrival of the lantern that we waited too late for her time zone. But we’ll get there.
Breakfast in the rain is wonderful. The temperature out there is perfect, and we are very happy with the view.
sounds like a lovely morning.
Serenity, at last…
(heh) Serenity in our house means everything is working as it ought and Monsieur Napoleon Bonaparte (‘Boney’) is not at the back lanai door demanding breakfast NOW.
Sunday has been designated Car Repair Day, as my aging Taurus had the water pump blow yesterday, fortunately when it was only 2 blocks from home. I ordered a new water pump which should be in today or tomorrow, and will mobilize the Car Repair Troops to assist in this operation.
As a fellow Okie I too loves when it rains here. We have had a uncommon wet august so far. The temps are in the 80s today,its wonderful.
Do you have any mosquito problems out back, so far? I expect the koi are too vigilant to allow any wigglers to stay for long in the pond. If I tried to stay outside in our back yard for more than a few minutes without bug spray, I’d be mozzie snax!
No, we were remarking on that: both of us sitting out there, and not a bug to be had, on a calm night.
Of course, we are courting two dragonflies, who must help us out some.
Hurray! Past halfway! I do hope that New York has not reduced your affection for the Foreigner series. I have wondered about it though with as many books as that series has and the pace at which they are written. I certainly have enjoyed reading them.
Foreigner is still a labor of love. I’m very fond of that lot.
Us, too!
And me, with the possible exception of Barb!
*points Barb in direction of privy, where Black Widows lurk*
How can you call a sprinkle a typical NW rain? Just because in OK, every rain is a gully-washer! 😀
This is the land of rain! (Well, the wet side is. Here, we’re a touch more limited.) In Alaska, the natives have a gazzilion words for snow…here, they have as many for rain. And I loved it. The webs between my fingers were tingling with joy. It was just the thot of soggy toast which gave me pause.
I was on vacation in Acadia National Park, up in Maine, during the week that it rained everyday. My tour group was quite impressed with a young lady who was calmly eating her lobster salad and glass of white wine out on the restaurant’s deck while the rain was lashing against the windows. We did wonder about whether the wine was getting watered down.
The odds are she wasn’t a Seattle-ite, but an Oklahoman. 😉
I recall being at Hadrian’s Wall in a downpour that had the resident sheep going squish! when they jogged. I had a pea-jacket style sweater on that was hip length—it was knee length by the time I got in; but I was out there on the classic viewpoint shooting pix. One of my shots is of the latrine (they had one handy, for guys on duty on the wall), about the size of a modern public restroom—and a gust of wind caught me just as I snapped the shot: we have this wildly tilted view of a privy…
But I didn’t fall in.
There was one other person out there shooting pix. We met atop the windswept wall, and he said, “I flew clear from New Zealand to see this place, and I’m going to see it!” I absolutely agreed. As a Latin scholar, I’d waited ten years and flown the Atlantic to get there, and I wasn’t leaving either. I got some great moody rain shots.
Also, depending on where said New Zealander was from, they could well have been used to similar weather – there’s plenty of places that like to turn on the rain (or anything else) for you! There’s places that are temperate rain forest (or near enough), and places that are approaching being high desert. You get used to random weather when you live on an island on the edge of a tectonic plate, with nothing between you and Antarctica but ocean!
Didn’t I see something recently where the west coast of NZ is now 8 cm closer to Australia? The east coast didn’t move as far so the island(s) stretched again.
What’s a little rain for Hadrian’s Wall? I’m from central Illinois – rain comes, rain goes. With decent equipment you walk where you need to, then go inside to dry out and drink tea or coffee. City folk seem to not quite get the idea, but those of us from small farming towns know how to cope. Oklahomans are probably the same breed – our forefathers settled the prairies, after all.
I grew up in Oklahoma, and now live in Arizona. Being outside when it rains is REQUIRED! LOL If the food and drinks get wet, you just aren’t eating/drinking fast enough!
Sounds like a lovely way to spend a morning. Right now, at 116 degrees in the shade, a little rain would be a VERY welcome thing. Not going to happen, but I can wish…
You should be back here in Tulsa; temp is 82.
And it was 75 in Springfield, MO. 🙂
The week ahead’s looking about the same.
I could do this all summer long!
Ugh! You guys are killing me. But I’ll be bragging this winter when my January afternoons are in the 60’s and you are all shivering, so there is some justice. :-/
Yeah, I fear we’ll have to pay for this wonderful weather with ice storms like the ones we have had the last two years. *sigh*
Oh please, don’t even THINK it! It’s downright chilly tonight. Wonderful weather, of course, but the mould spore and ragweed have hit new highs…
Where I live, it hit 103 this afternoon if I can trust my thermometer. And the eastern horizon is a bank of smoke, which occasionally bumps up at the top into this bank of pure white. It looks rather like whipped cream atop a very muddy sundae. It will be interesting to see who shows up at work tomorrow (they are threatening to shut down one of our main highways), and if my boss was affected by the evacuations in his area.
All the smoke from southern California is rushing through Vegas. We had a bright orange moon last night and a very hazy day today.
Love the rain! But being an adopted Seattleite, that’s pretty much a given. My nine years there were some of the best of my life. Still hope to go back!
You can always tell a Seattle native (or successful transplant) because they tend not to bother with umbrellas in the all-day sprinkles.