Le déluge

It rained steadily all day yesterday, and heavily at times. Well, there was one dry period — around 5:45 p.m., I noticed the rain had stopped. It was just the right time for my walk with Callie the collie, so out we went. We slogged around on a looping route up and down rows of vines, covering a lot of ground but staying pretty close to the house in case the rain started up again. It didn't, or at least didn't start falling again until about 10 minutes after we were back inside. It's amazing how often that happens.

This morning it's still raining moderately. But don't be fooled, the weather report says. We will have steady rain all day today, with especially heavy downpours in the afternoon over our part of the country. We're going to Blois for lunch with friends, so we'll just hope for the best here at the house. I still worry about the roof over the kitchen, but so far so good. It was last May when water started gushing in there.

This artichoke plant is enjoying the soggy weather.

South of us, the Dordogne (the towns of Périgueux, Sarlat, Bergerac), Charente (Angoulême, Cognac), Haute-Vienne (Limoges, Rochechouart), and Vienne (Poitiers, Châtellerault) départements are under weather warnings for heavy rains, hail, and violent thunderstorms. I think we will be on the very northern edge of that system. With any luck, we won't get the worst of it.

My little grapevines keep producing more and more leaf buds.

Last night around dark, I had to go out in the rain to open the valve on our rain barrel. As I suspected, the barrel was overflowing, and I'd rather have all that water run off farther from the house through a garden hose than just hit the ground right up against the foundation.

I didn't get too wet, even though it took a minute or two to hook up the hose, which we had disconnected during drier weather so that we could more easily run the caught rainwater into watering cans and other recipients, and not waste it. Our minor May drought didn't last long this year.