Lots of Rain

Lots and lots of rain over the past 2 weeks, with the Mississippi River at historic flood levels, expected to rise up to 45 feet by May 10.  The river has not been this high since the 20's and 30's.  The rain has added to flooding problems with the tributaries, but the level of the Mississippi River has more to do with rain and snow melt up north.

In any case, it's too wet to get into the garden now, but before it all started I had managed to plant some sugar snaps, lettuce, broccoli, radishes, pole and bush beans, and set out a few tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.  Here are some pictures from a couple of weeks ago of the vegetable garden and the yard.

This is a corner of my vegetable garden.  This bed has lettuce and snow peas are planted around the teepee.

 This is a picture of my "woodland path" -- with woodland phlox and red buckeye blooming.  There is also a native azalea close by, as well as self heal, spring beauties, and lyre leaf sage coming up all around the front yard.

This is a glob of frog eggs in my pond.  All this rain has now pushed them down and I don't know if they got eaten or if they have hatched.  I've seen some very large "lost boy" tadpoles (they don't ever seem to grow up and change into frogs), but no tiny ones.

This picture was just taken a few days ago in between the rains.  I have a lot of milkweed in my front yard, and have seen more monarchs flying around than I have in several years.  I have a lot of monarch caterpillars on the milkweed this spring, which is very nice indeed.

This is a picture of the front of my house -- not a very good picture, but it shows the roses and clematis I have by the front door.

I think I remember what the sun looks like.  Now with all the rain the yard really looks like a jungle, and feels like a rain forest.  We had been having temps in the 80's, but today our high is only 59 and it's supposed to get down in the 40's tonight.