Just In The Nick Of Time

I am not sure why but when Fall arrives all the time that was available all Summer for working at the garden just sort of evaporates. No more morning hours available for digging in the dirt. No more afternoon hours for weeding and chatting and planning.

Poof!

Does it pack up and go to Arizona for the winter? Does anyone know?

But today LaurenLeap and I thought that perhaps we might be able to score a few hours in the plots to get things cleared out some more. There was rain forecast. It was VERY windy. It was pretty cloudy. But we had hopes.

The garden is looking pretty raggedy by this time.

We have had a good frost so the beans are over and done. So sad, just their spindly little stalks. The sunflowers are dead, dead, dead. The beets were on their way out so we harvested those.

Amazingly the broccoli chugs on, sending up small side shoots. But it’s time is short as well.

Such sad, sad beans. But we have a boat load of beans in the freezer so it is OK.

We had been working industriously for an hour or so, pulling up plants, adding things to the compost pile, carting things up to the dumpster. Working up a nice bit of sweat in the very stiff and increasingly chilly breeze.

And then I looked up.

I looked at the sky.

Oh that cannot be good.

Oh dear. I looked at LaurenLeap. LaurenLeap looked at me.

LaurenLeap: How long do you think we have? Five minutes maybe?

Me: No, I think that is a very optimistic thought. I am guessing about three minutes.

We could already see and smell the rain coming. Even feel a few drops here and there.

It is absolutely amazing how fast 50 something women can move when confronted with the possibility of a good drenching.

We grabbed our equipment and hightailed it up to our cars, struggling to get the gate closed and locked in the every increasing rain and wind.

And closed the car doors just as the deluge was upon us. Now that is a very nice feeling indeed. So we had to sit in our cars, right next to each other and talk on our cells phones to congratulate ourselves on how fast we had moved.

Technology, you gotta love it.

This is what the drive looked like all the way home.

Oh yes, just in the nick of time.