The weight of water

Yesterday morning, after going about six rounds with the sleep button on my alarm clock, I stumbled out of bed and headed to the kitchen, poured myself a cup of amb…

Wait. That was Dolly Parton’s morning.

The rounds with the sleep button did happen, followed by several minutes of bargaining with myself about what I had time to do before leaving for work. Shower, get dressed: that’s a given. Feed the fish: check. Make lunch: not required, but preferable to the options in Cedar Rapids. Water garden: Certainly.

I opened the back door and started to slip on the flip-flops I’ve relegated to garden duty, but then noticed a few drops of rain falling. I waffled, wondering if this was going to be just a small sprinkle, not enough to really provide an appropriate drink to the garden.

I decided it would be plenty, patted myself on the back for saving water, and went inside.

Moments, later, a crack of thunder rewarded me for my good judgment by opening up the sky. Rain poured down so quickly that my entire bathroom (window open, of course) suddenly looked as if I’d left the shower curtain open earlier in the morning. A veritable river flowed down the sidewalk and street in front of my house. It’s probably eight paces from my front steps to my car, and even with an umbrella, by the time I slammed the door shut behind me, my pants were soaked and water ran down my arm. I had to turn the heater on while driving to work to warm up and dry off.

By the time I left the office last night, the sun was out and Cedar Rapids smelled like wet fertilizer. After driving home to Iowa City, I headed out to the garden to see how everyone was doing.

It took me a minute or two to work my way down the bed to notice, but when I saw it, I gasped. The heavy rain had toppled one of the eggplants. The baby purple eggplant near the top of the plant was slightly buried in the dirt, and the plant’s roots showing above the surface. Of course, this is the plant that I didn’t stake.

I sprung to action and lifted it gently back into place, tying it gently to a stake this time in the hopes that it won’t happen again. This plant has survived the juglone dripline so far…I’d hate to see it killed by heavy rain.

It looked fine when I left it yesterday, although the poor thing was a little dirty from a day on its side. There’s another thunderstorm moving through the area this morning, though, bringing some more rain, so it should get a bath before the sun rises.