Let It Rain

I could not remember if have used this song title before but since it is a Clapton song that really doesn't matter. Nor the literal hundreds of songs dealing with rain. Clapton is king and so worth repeating. I have not posted a photo of Grendal cat in some time so I thought I would put one up. You non-cat people out there just chill. She is a sweetheart and does her best to keep me company. Yesterday, after I got back home from work, the rain was so heavy on the roof and I was sleepy from getting up so early. Me and Toxicat (as Allen calls her) piled up on the couch and snoozed for a couple of hours! Grendal just loves to sit or lay in front of the door and watch the rain. Sometimes, I will even sit with her for awhile. The two foot eaves on the house protect all the openings, unless it is a blowing rain, so I can open the door and windows to enjoy the cool air without worrying about water coming in. It is very nice but I have to say, just an accident. I didn't realize that would be one of the benefits when I designed the overhangs. I have enjoyed the solitude of the past couple of days; it has been very relaxing. I have tried to get some stuff done. To be somewhat productive.

My garden has just gone to hell basically. The raccoons got into the corn but I just let them have it. It was so pitiful it didn't matter. The rain has all the plants just laying over on the ground right now. Most of my tomato plants have burned up or been eaten. I still have a few that are doing OK. It is really frustrating to me that I don't have time to take care of anything. The pepper plants however are still doing well. My paprika experiment is going pretty good. I have harvested about 2 dozen peppers. They have a structure like a bell pepper, just smaller, like a little pumpkin. I am trying to dry them now but they seem to just sit there. Their skin is so thick I have no idea how long this is going to take but everything I have read says to just let them air dry like you would any pepper. Then you store them in a jar or whatever and grind them as you need them. The other red peppers there are some I got from Seeds of Change. They are aci sivri, an old Turkish pepper that can be mild or very hot. They look like a very large cayenne as they get up to about 8" long. Supposedly fairly rare. The green ones are just some banana peppers and some dried peas in the bowl. I have gotten a lot of okra and green beans but I don't think this garden did as well as last year. I have pickled some of the okra with the banana peppers and hope to put up a few more pints before it's all done. I'm going to try to redo and plant some stuff for fall if I can get the time.

This is one of the little bowls I threw yesterday. I also threw some mugs and a big platter and some soup bowls to replace all the ones that Allen has broken. I have not been able to trim anything because the rain has got it so humid here that nothing is drying. Maybe this weekend I can finish these pieces up. While I was throwing I thought how cool it would be if I could get some video of me making a pot and post that. I can usually throw a bowl in just a couple of minutes so that would not be too long. If I can figure out how to do that and get some help maybe I will.

*Eric Clapton