So this week the weather has been perfect for young plants. Rain showers alternating with strong sun. We got the crops in the ground: four tomatoes, five bell peppers, a dozen potato plants, four hills of lettuce, ten or so climbing peas. plus a cucumber and a zucchini plant. (The last two look a little lonely but  I’m expecting them to fill in the raised bed all by themselves). That's in addition to the cherry tree, that’s covered with fruit, the rhubarb that's huge (and flowering, we've never seen rhubarb flower before), the apples that look like they will produce a lot, the strawberries that we are already beginning to harvest, and the raspberries that are growing rapidly. If all goes well we might need another freezer. The best part is that I’m deliberately not going overboard with the garden this year. There’s a lot of unused space between the plants. If this season goes well I can likely plant twice as much next year. Plus I already have a spot in mind for another space for more raised beds. First, I want to see how this year goes.

One thing we have had to deal with was tent caterpillars. Fortunately there were only four or five twigs infected. We just trimmed them off and burned them. Let me be honest, tent caterpillars are a horrer show. From the way they hide inside the webbing, to how they gather outside of the tent in the sun to warm up, to how wasps dive bomb them and carry them off to feed them alive to their own larva, to how the whole mass of bugs starts wriggling as the fire creeps closer. They are just a horror show. Fortunately this year appears to be the worst in decades. I say fortunately because with luck this might mean that we won’t have to do this next year.
http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/news/story.html?id=8af8f898-32d2-4460-9934-4416ee7ed2b6&k=59044

The weather has made it a little tricky for the cats. They go out on the deck to only to get rained on or to discover that everything was wet. One time we couldn’t even get them to go out at all. We opened the door and called them. The trouble was that it started raining really hard. The rattle it made hitting the aluminium roof over the deck was deafening. The door was opened but Geiger and Momiji would only peer at it from hiding. It was too loud and scary for them. Not that Geiger hasn’t had his time outside this week. We let them out on the deck regularly. We watch them and have stuff up to keep them on the deck but he’s managed to escape and run down the stairs and out into the yard on several occasions. We keep tightening security but he keeps trying. Maybe Marsha will take him for a walk on the leash this week.

I’m all ready for the transit of Venus this Tuesday and I hope you're ready as well. I got all my stuff,  filters and such left over from the eclipse so watching it will be great. The trick will be if the weather cooperates. They missed the eclipse up here because of heavy clouds. Hope Nanaimo doesn’t go two for two. If not, I'll catch it on the web. Come to think of it if you don't have a solar filter, eclipse glasses, or #14 welders filter handy that might be the best way for you to view it as well.

Finally, locally there was an interesting story. Seems that there was this drunken guy from Alberts who passed out on the railroad tracks near Elko BC. (Note to my family, yes there is an Elko BC in addition to the one in NV.) The engineer on the train saw him and hit the horn and brakes at the same time. Unfortunately by the time the train came to a stop, 26 cars had passed over where he lay. Expecting the worst they were astonished to find that the man was completely unharmed, still asleep, lying between the tracks. They finally managed to wake him and he got up, grabbed his beer, which also survived the incident,  and staggered off toward the campground where he was staying. They said that it was a good thing he was so drunk. If the noise of the train and its horn had woken him up and he had moved at all he would likely have been killed. Ironically enough being way over the legal limit both endangered and saved his life.. The moral of this: Either don’t drink at all or if you do, drink WAY more that you should. Moderation will kill ya. Do not try this at home!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/05/23/bc-train-cp-drunk-alberta.html

PIX: The garden