It looks like our rainy spell might end today. Last night a storm front went through, and we had some real rain (instead of mist and drizzle) for an hour or two, along with thunder and lightning. The past week has been a real slog. The trade-off now is that temperatures are dropping into the low 60s F (mid-teens C). It won't seem like summer — that's for sure.
In the photo above, Callie seems to be looking heavenward, begging the clouds to go away and the sun to come back out. (Where did that old French proverb that says en mai fais ce qu'il te plaît come from anyway?) Actually, I'm not sure what the dog was looking at. The wisteria vine was above our heads when I snapped the picture. Maybe a bee was buzzing around up there.
Just wrapping up one of the week's subjects: the plum tree. It's an opportunity to throw in another photo of the dog. Callie has been with us for just over nine years now. Her first summer here in Saint-Aignan (and on Earth, for that matter) was in 2007, and it was rainy and dreary from May until the end of August. Let's not repeat that experience.
The plum tree, which I grew by planting some plum pits in a pot (notice the alliteration), has been growing for about the same amount of time (since 2007 or 2008). It's actually two trees conjoined. I planted the two of them together with the idea that I'd eventually cut the punier one down, but I never did. So now they are twin trees, and they are full of little red plums.
My recollection of the month of May in Paris, France, for at least the four decades I lived there around mid-century, is it has been a rainy month, with some exceptions.
ReplyDeleteIt was downright cold yesterday morning when I went out to walk with the dog. There was a bise, a north wind, blowing.
Delete"planting some plum pits in a pot" I tried saying it out loud and failed the first time.
ReplyDeletePeter Piper planted plenty of pretty plum pits in pots.
DeleteMy grandson came along about the same time as Callie and the potted plum pits. That tree is lovely and so is the pup.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe he is that old already.
DeleteI remember some good plum tartes and plum jelly being shown here on this blog in previous years :)
ReplyDeleteOur neighbors usually give us several kilos of red plums and yellow mirabelle plums in the summer.
Delete"pits in a pot..." lol, lol. There sure have grown quickly into a nice big tree (s). I see your elephant plant in the first photo with Callie.
ReplyDeleteHi Diogenes,
DeleteThis well traveled plant has a long story. One year, when Ken and Walt came to visit us in Salton City, Ken took a cutting and brought it back to San Francisco where it thrived. Ken has a green thumb. Years later, after Ken and Walt had sold their house up there, they came down to visit us again on their way to the East Coast. With them they brought back to us the Jade of the Desert. Several years later, I took a cutting of that plant and brought it back to Ken in Saint-Aignan. Now it thrives in the Loire Valley, so far from it native [?] Southern California.
That plant now has offspring on two continents. Well traveled, indeed. It is very popular here in Socal, especially now for xeriscaping purposes.
DeleteI remember taking the cuttings from Salton City back to SF. I went and asked at a plant nursery whether it was likely to survive in the Bay Area climate. I was told to protect it from winter rains and I did, so it thrived. Mostly, it lived outdoors.
DeleteWhen Walt and I left SF to move to Saint-Aignan, I took the potted plant (Portulacaria afra, I think, which is native to South Africa and known as "elephant bush") back to CHM in Salton City. The original plant had died, IIRC, and he was glad to have it again. I was glad when he brought me some cuttings in about 2004.
Ten years had passed between my taking the cuttings to SF and then taking the plant back to SoCal. BTW, Elephant Bush.
DeleteThat's a pip of a pit-potted plum-pulp plant.
ReplyDeleteHe he...
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