It's not nice to tempt mother nature...

Since my last post, we have experienced more "Oregon-spring-like" weather. We had quite a stretch of rainy days, and if one believes the weather forecasters (never a sure bet) there is more rain to come.

Today, however, has been beautiful from sunrise to early evening. As I write, the outdoor temperature is 72 degrees and the sun is streaming in the front windows. Jill and I made a call on Lowe's garden department and Home Depot's garden department. We picked up about $100 worth of bedding plants and spent a happy afternoon planting them.

This is the earliest we have ever planted bedding plants, but that is because we will be on the road on Mother's Day, the traditional day for planting in the Pacific Northwest. My experience with early planting has not been encouraging. Years, no... decades ago, I was lured into early planting (late March or early April, as I recall) by a run of several days' warm sunny weather. The inevitable return to Oregon's wet chilly springtime weather didn't kill the plants, but it stunted their growth, and they never did recover.

So, we shall see what God has in store for us in terms of weather. I am trusting that this current little breach of gardening etiquette will not result in a similar disastrous result. In fact, I told Jill that I expect to come home from our excursion to a yard bursting with color! Now if the elves would just come and replace the pump and clean the algae out of the pond while we are gone...