Parched

Lisa and I think God (Allah, Mama N, or whoever) has a large invisible umbrella over Carteret County. Not even the whole county, just mostly our neighborhood and vicinity. Huge thunderstorms and rain events have this uncanny ability to break up into nothing when they reach our force field -- I don't think we have received more than 1/8" of rain in four weeks, despite the constant storms popping up around us. This has made both of us rather irritable, and despite our efforts to water our garden, it is quickly approaching dead.
Luckily, a few things are hanging in there (and we'll be saving seed for their exceptional drought-tolerance!):


Our cherokees are hanging in there pretty well, and we've already harvested about 5-6 really nice looking tomatoes. And no end rot this year! I'll have some more photos of them soon. Even though our paste tomatoes are looking pretty awful, we got some nice fruits off them, too. I think they are done for, though. Our potatoes never got very big before the plants died, but they are still pretty tasty!

Our pride and joy this year are our peppers, both the bell and chilis. They are just beginning to turn, and I love how nice and big the bells got:


I think having them on the deck, partially shaded by our bushes really helped. This photo is from just one plant.

And here are a bunch of photos from my seedballz:

It's a mix of flower seeds held together in a clay ball so they don't dry out or get carried away by birds when they are trying to germinate. It creates this neat bouquet effect. With everything else withering away, it's nice to see some unexpected color.




And finally, here's a glimpse of our little possum (opossum?) baby that was trapped inside our 5 gallon bucket and nearly gave me a heart attack (he's probably saying the same about me!):


He eventually scampered away and probably up the magnolia tree. Haven't seen him since.