It’s a beastly day; cool and wet. Apart from two short, unavoidable trips I’m staying indoors; so will the goats, hens, parrot and dogs. Of the domestic and farm animals only the horse and the neighbour’s cows are out, poor things; it’s hard to tell if they mind. Very good for the garden, rain.
Here’s one of the elegant looking slugs that come out when it rains:
They look as if they were designed in Milan by a handbag company, I love the black and brown combination. Here’s another:
We’re told they’re eating up the garden, but they’re doing a terrible job. They must be on a ‘go slow’.
A Bad Guide 
It’s like that here, too. My wife is out taking the grandsons to the bagel shop (to replenish our supply and give the kids a treat and me a break); I bless her plucky New England spirit. Me, I’m cowering indoors with the cats.
I’m caterwauling indoors at the cows.
It finally stopped raining and if I had one I would now go to the bagel shop.
Here too. (Maybe not as bad though.)
I’m glad to hear everyone else is having bad weather.
Yes, I understand it can warm your heart to know that everyone else is in the same shit as you are. On the other hand, parler de la pluie et du beau temps* is a healthy occupation.
* expression meaning “to talk about this and that” (i.e. small talk)
Oh, you lucky, lucky people. We are wearing next to nothing (husband genuinely nothing, except he just had to dress to take the dogs out) and showering every hour or so, and not drying off at all. It is so hot no-one can think at all. If you imagine our state, you may be able to appreciate yours. I’m envious.
How very sensitive of him; our dogs don’t seem to care what we’re wearing.
Shall I gloat with the beautiful weather we are having in Halifax this week? a compensation for the long, wretched winter – here we have all the misery of winter (wet, icy, grey) and none of the joys (crisp snow and sunshine). We don’t see signs of spring until well into May (when the temperature goes up and down erratically) and then suddenly it’s summer (but the weather will still be temperamental).
Oh, these dogs are discerning – very intuitive about where to place a supplicant paw. Sandy feels she is just the right height, colour and fluffiness to join the queue behind Topsy (I need to know, please – is Topsy named after William Morris? The resemblance is striking.) and the lovely Goats. Ruskin is too imperiously orange to condescend…Now he has gone to bed. Sorry. It is so hot I am completely OT. I keep obsessing about that Belgian contrepetrie “Il fait chaud et beau”.
As Catanea said, sometimes there’s nothing worse than invariably ‘good’ weather, but I’m very glad you’re having some.
I too woke up to rain and congratulated myself for having had the foresight to mow the lawn last night just before dusk, which was at 8:28 P.M.
Now it is sunny and I have found some slugs. They aren’t as cute as Kron’s slugs, but I have a mushroom and a toad as well.
http://camelsnose.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/after-the-rain/
Hat with the Cat?:
These lovely pictures of damp weather have inspired me. In the meantime, here’s a fauna shot from early one autumn morning in ’07. I disturbed a bird’s breakfast when going out to hang out laundry.
Those are the kind of birds that cause our hens to lie on their backs and play dead.
Are those limes in your garden? Lucky you.
Not limes, feijoas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feijoa
I can’t stand them, making me one of perhaps 6 people in the country who don’t like them.
It’s named after a Mr Feijoa, according to Wiki. It made me think of feijoada, the “national dish” of Brazil, but (again according to Wiki) that name comes from feijão, Portuguese for “beans”.
I love feijoada but the last time I tried to eat a meal of it I almost collapsed on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. I mourn for my gluttonous youth and the infinite capacity of my youthful stomach.
In future, you’ll have to ask for a kitty bag.
I couldn’t get by without Prilosec. It’s the gold standard for aging, rebellious stomachs.
“I mourn for my gluttonous youth ” – I was thinking about a heavy dish made of beans and read that as “glutinous youth”.
According to Wiki, Feijoa is the name of the plant, which is honours the botanist “João da Silva Feijó”.
The plant is not related to beans, but the name Feijó seems to be a variant of feijão.
The letter j is pronounced “zh” in Portuguese as in French, but still Wiki gives the English pronunciation of the fruit/plant with “h” as in Spanish. What is it in NZ English?
The other day the article about Camp Coffee described it as “glutinous” too. Not the most appetizing description.
“What is it in NZ English?” Sorry, I have never learned IPA, so the best I can offer is: A standard “j” as in “jail”.
Oh dear, you’re right as usual, m-l.
There was a discussion of the pronunciation on LH not too long ago.
Thanks once again to an MMcM link, I can reproduce what you said last August, Stuart:
Posted by: Stuart at August 4, 2008 07:11 PM
Forget Clapton, MMcM is God.
“It is possoble that” one’s typos will NEVER die here on these verdammte Interweb tubes.
Yeah, been miserable in Moscow, too. How miserable? It has been raining nonstop since I hung out my clothes on the line on Friday. The internet tower stopped working. My water heater flooded me and died. I got a cold.
Hm. What else can I whine about?
I should say that the cats are happy. Snoozing by the electric heater alternating with killing things (today’s haul: two moles).
I missed “possoble” having been distracted by famikly. But I think I like possoble very much and will probobbly now use it. I bet Ogden Nash would’ve liked it.