Wet and all's well

In spite of tornadoes one hundred or so miles west of here, we are well. Soggy. Muddy. Frustrated in the weeding department. But very well. We got three inches of rain on Sunday night, after several days of stormy weather, waking up on Monday morning to roaring streams that just a week ago were ditches full of pebbles. The South Fork of the Cottonwood River has overflowed into the fields surrounding Matfield Green, and Highway 177 is closed to through traffic due to flooding between Strong City and Cottonwood Falls.

I bought $80 worth of plants on Saturday, managing to get only some of them in to the ground that afternoon. So yesterday (Monday) I went out in the mucky garden and pasted them in - thinking that they were better off in the wet ground than drying out in the dark garage. I returned to the bunkhouse with gloves, shovel, boots and overalls caked in thick clay-ey mud. Fun, actually, mucking about in the dirt, leaving deep footprints in soggy soil, if you let go of the image of what gardening is supposed to be like.

And seriously, the weeds are out of control.

Bill has taken up micology. And this is perfect weather for it. The field north of Pioneer Bluffs is loaded with a white gilled mushroom with a dunce-cap top. Bill has a couple of books about mushrooms and a lot of curiosity, so every day he's out finding something new. Every night we get out the books and look through the characteristics trying to identify what he's found...with not much success so far. Don't worry, we won't eat too much of anything until we're sure.