Waiting For Rain

Another summer of waiting our turn for the rain has begun. Two nights ago the rain missed us just to the east.

And here is some rain that missed us just to the west last night.

Missed It By That Much

For those of you that care, the storm got close enough tonight that you could feel the spray blowing in off the wall of rain just off to our east. At one point we looked in the back yard and one part of our deck was wet, there were splatter drops in Brenna's sandbox, and standing water in a lid on the other side of the house. The rest of the yard was bone dry. If you're familiar with where we live, the heavy rain was right on our door step, before it pulled away to the east.

The Monsoons Have Begun (Early)

We had a storm come in from the north tonight, of all places. Lots of rain around Saguaro and Canyon Lake, and it got as close as about five streets north of us, before it retreated. You could smell the rain in the air. But alas, all we got was a little wind, and a nice sunset.

Random June Yard Shots

Well, we're still in the 90s, although those days are numbered. They're forecasting 106 by this weekend, which is actually close to our average high for this time of the year.

Here are a few shots from around the yard. Not much blooming right now, the yard is shifting into survival mode, until the monsoon arrives.

I managed to salvage a handful of grapes off this vine, the birds got to a good number of them. They were rather small, and extremely tart, but very tasty. I have two more on the opposite side, and hope to have a grape coral on the north side of the house in a few years.

The calomondin is covered in blooms again, should have another nice harvest by August. There are a few that are ripening at the moment, and Brenna is quick to point these out, as she enjoys yanking them off the tree and walking around the house with them in her hands (Sunday she put one in her shoe and forgot it was there, and proceeded to squish is when we were getting ready to go shopping).

I've never seen the jujubee hold it's fruit this far into the summer, I guess again thanks to our mild weather. The Li only had two that are still maturing, but the Li, my newer tree, still has about five or six that are getting to be decent size. They are, however, starting to sunburn, and with our temparatures on the rise, it will be interesting to see if they'll make it to the monsoon.

Catching Up

Lots going on the yard, especially since our temps are still pretty mild for this time of year.

Here's a shot of the best looking pomegranate out of the bunch. A lot of them are undersized and/or are splitting, but this one looks like it's ripening nicely. These bushes are barely four feet tall, however, so I'm sure as the years go by, they'll be better producers.

This group of grapes on the north side of the yard turned into raisins while I was out of town. Funny how quickly they ripen. Given how young this vine is, they could have just aborted, who knows.

My larger vine, however, is still holding four or five small clusters like this one. I could have sworn this was a Thompson's Seedless, but they're starting to turn purple, so it must be a Flame or Fantasy variety.

The lemon is growing maybe ten lemons this year, best I can tell. I might get another smaller crop to bloom when the monsoon hits, but it definitely looks like a resting year, after last years crop of 50+ lemons.



The tangerine is holding onto these four guys, and have put out another two or three additional ones since. The tree is so young that I'm having a hard time figuring our how frequently to water it, so I wouldn't be surprised if this fruit gets dropped out of stress.



After threatening to cut my dwarf orange down, it's decided to produce again this year. I have about 7 or 8 that are about this size now, so they should mature in December.

I decided to hack my feather leaf cassia bushes nearly to the ground this afternoon, to give the citrus some additional sunlight. Here are the lemon and blood orange.

And here is the tangerine, cloaked by the lantana in the background.

The lang jujube is still maturing. Here are two. They are elongated, compared to the li variety, which is more rounded. Time will tell if either tree holds its fruit through the month of June. Usually they drop them during the worst of the heat, and then produce a mature crop in November, when the weather is more favorable.

And finally, my canna are coming up pretty well in the shade of the mesquite.