In which we celebrate Rain Day and there is a farm-wide photo dump

It's late October:  the Swamp should be well-soggy by now.

Inside Haenaheim, the beans, corns and sunflowers are finished, but the marigolds are still going.

Usually the fall (winter) rainy season begins around Labor Day, which is now 6 weeks past.  This year, we got our first real rain (after 100+ days of NONE) yesterday.

Pretty much everybody celebrated.

An impromptu display of library picture books about rain, courtesy of my colleague Andrea

On the farm, we're glad to have wet dirt again, of course.  But even more important is the AIR:  it has actual oxygen in it again, instead of particulates from various fires.

It still looks dry but if feels wetter.  Whew.

A neighbor pinged me last Sunday to alert me to the fire that had sprung up nearby--eight miles away by road, but only 4 or 5 miles away by crow.  Too close!

Jim and I scurried around the farm, making sure the rig was packed with gear and ready to load and leave.  

Jim Creek Rd fire, photo by Snohomish County Fire District #21

Fortunately for us, the fire was close enough to the Jim Creek Radio Station (which supplies communications for US Navy vessels worldwide) that State and Federal agencies responded fast and threw all kinds of stuff at it.  

Sometimes it's advantageous to have a major nuclear strike target nearby.  This is one of those times.

Thursday:  the last breakfast in Mordor

In other news, we now have five cats.  What?  Yes.  FIVE CATS.

1.  Rumplecatskin, the first and most important.  House cat, lord of the couch and chair and bed.

Rumplecatskin shows off the new floor in the house (more about the floor in a sec)

2.   Emeralda Weatherwax, Polydact Barn Cat

Esmeralda guards the barn and gardens from intruders.  Also, she looks beautiful.

3.  (Pussin) Boots, herder of poultry

When Neighbor Dorothy moved to a memory care home, she asked us to 
take care of Boots.  How could we say no?  (We can't.  We didn't)

4.  Goblin, an unexpected pleasure

Goblin was probably dumped nearby, and was being inadvertently fed by Neighbor Dorothy.
When Boots moved in, she brought Goblin and Sinbad with her, and now we feed them all.

5.  Sinbad, a bit of a pirate

Sinbad did something awful to his tail and self-amputated part of it before we could catch him.  
We finally trapped him and hauled him to the local animal shelter for surgical treatment of his
piratical tail, as well as removal of his Manly Parts.  He'll come home to us when the stitches are out.

Haiku Farm photo dump:

The aforementioned new floors!

We hired a neighbor who does construction to bring his crew and replace the terrible carpet

I cannot overstate what a lousy idea it is to have carpet in a BATHROOM
Had to replace subflooring in there.  It was awful.

Carpet gone, and so is the giant tub we never used.  (Next up: paint!)

Neighbor Dorothy's children are selling off her hoard, which includes some excellent firewood.

With the weather so weird,  we got very little fruit from the orchard this year--
no cherries, no pears, very few plums and apples.  The animals got most of the damaged crop.

The pumpkins didn't get GINORMOUS, but we got some big ones.  We also got
a big crop of purple cauliflower and pepita squashes.

I planted a variety of butternut squash that should be small.  Some of these squashes didn't
get the "little" memo.  We harvested more than 50 of these--plenty for winter!

A bumper crop of beans--20 pints of canned green beans in the pantry,
and we're still hulling dried beans for soup.  We have about 2 pounds so far.

Looking forward to sunnier days:  Jim is assembling the greenhouse kit I bought as a celebration of the new job.  

We'll probably finish the doors and the roof tomorrow!

There, I think I'm caught up.  For a while, anyhow.