Walking in the rain

We are having a lovely sunny weekend with real pre-summer heat and Frost is running outside in shorts. It is a great day to plant out the tomatoes and the baby chicks are having a whole day in the coop with their heat lamp - the sun.

It wasn' t like that last week. It feels like everyone we know has been sick and its been rainy and dark during the day. Even Wren who typically hates "raincot" was willing to wear it to go for a walk. Here are some our our pictures from the walk. I allowed Wren to dictate some of our subjects but this one was mine. Its a peony. I have always wanted a peony and this week I bought one at Costco. This is our neighbors peony which produces giant flowers every year. I am hoping to do a painting of this foliage. It feels so substantial and reminds me of the art of the English crafts movement which so beautifully depicted acanthus leaves, artichoke and sinuous vines.


Wren is in a dangerous stage of wanting to taste every plant he finds. He walks up the street asking "its idble?" (aka "edible") and breaking off leaves from rose bushes, lavendar, trees and other shrubs. Today he ate honeysuckle. Whenever he passes a thyme or fennel bush he tears off a handful and chomps it with drooling green saliva. "I can eat it?" he asks, after the fact. I have told him to check with me and he is always excited when we find a new herb or vegetable hiding among the garden plantings on our walk. Here Wren tastes some fennel.


This picture shows Wren asking whether he can eat fern fronds and "why they curl?" I didn't tell him that you can eat fronds cooked but waited while he tried to uncurl each frond and became frustrated when they ravelled up again.

This was a picture Wren asked me to take. He told me "this is fire hydrant. It is where fire comes out!" I told him that water actually came out but he insisted that "it a fire hydrant. Fire is coming out!" Whenever we pass one he tests me by saying this again. If I don't want to get into a fight I keep quiet. I mean, I can't make water come out of it and he can't make fire come out of it but it is called a fire hydrant not a water hydrant. Right?


I love the rockery succulents that grow here. They explode in summer and burst into flower. I have lived in other places where I had succulents but never have they been so profuse and easy to grow. So much for Seattle the rainy city.

Wren is anxious about getting wet when it rains. On this walk I wasn't even wearing a raincoat in the light misting of rain but Wren wanted a 'brella and his raincoat. He annouced that the "raincoat DOES have pockets" as if this was a significant factor.