Duck and cover!

Does this look like a scene from Harry Potter?  

Nope just the sky over the Hairy Potters studio around 8:15 a.m. yesterday morning!

Just about the first clap of thunder and lightening I was wearing a dog hat.  We badly needed the rain but this was going to be toad strangler of the first rate.   It filled the pond, the street, the patio and kept going.  Winds were clocked at 70 mph and if you closed your eyes you could hear tree limbs snapping.  

Sure enough time to fire that kiln!  Sure enough the hamster farted down at the power plant and we were out long enough for the kiln to drop 600 degrees.  I waited it out and ramped it up again.   I bet those big flat slab plates are going to look like potato chips!  

Everything was clear and bright by 12:30 p.m. and I had pots to deliver.  The humidity was climbing fast and I was headed to the city.  After a couple hours in the city of asphalt and concrete our house felt a good 15 degrees cooler......... time to jump into that garden.  

Was too hot to haul mulch so I dug post holes and got the blackberry bed cleaned up.

The strawberries look great this year and since they are netted we should get a few.

Managed to plant a bucket of potatoes; weed, relocate asparagus crowns and mulch them in.

Blueberries are looking good this year but found a robin under the netting gorging herself silly.  She waddled out and had trouble getting air born.

Today we are nearing 100 degrees and it has taken it's toll on the flowers and lettuce to be sure.

Chard and beets look pretty good but radishes have bolted and are now blooming.  We managed enough for radish sandwiches the other night.  Tomorrow they will be oft-ed and added to the compost pile. 

The flowers are taking a beating too.  Poppies lasted 24 hours, the peonies 48.   However the baptisia and salvia looks fab!

and the baby ground hogs are out...... let the war begin.

WHERE?! 

The studio is hovering at 109 F. and I am waiting for tonight to wax and glaze pots needed for the weekend.  Storms moving through tomorrow and hopefully we will be back in the 70's.  

Sitting in Paine Falls sip'n brain freeze smoothies and swat'n mosquitos...... what a year! 

on so many levels!