Mother Nature

She giveth and she taketh away, Mother Nature. We've had traditional Southern thunderstorms this year. Every day or so as the heat and humidity rise, so too do the cumulous clouds. Rising and rising getting darker and darker until the rumbling starts soon followed by rain. I am so grateful when it rains! Our garden grows beautiful when we get these intermittent rains, But, night before last we had a doozie! Lightening filled the sky, the rains came down in sheets and the winds were ferocious. The limbs of great oaks lifted and swirled in the wind. The next morning street and yards were littered with large limbs and branches. Power was still out in whole neighborhoods in our small town and the garden had taken a beating. Our field pea tower, made of bamboo, snapped under the pressure. Okra plants, chest high the day before, lay in a whirl on the ground. A block away, following a straight line out from our garden, a giant oak fell on apartment building crushing the roof. Downburst? I think so.  

We heeled up the okra and propped up the field peas and picked up twigs and branches off and on all day. City crews and private owners cleaned up larger limbs and except for the crushed apartment we're back on track waiting for okra to bloom because the fruit forms almost overnight. Waiting. Waiting. Soon.