fingers crossed for no mudslides!

i’m headed up to the mountains for a few days, where they’ve had record rainfalls and an ongoing flash flood warning...looks like the weather’s going to be stormy the whole time i’m there, but that’s ok. part of the road that loops around payette lake is closed because flood waters topped a bridge. most of highway 55 should be okay though, i hope...

it’s hard to leave the garden...new things are happening so fast, peas and strawberries are ripening, flowers are blooming...i’m going to miss so much.

three more tomatoes bloomed since saturday: another white currant, then the basket tomato, then a paul robeson (pictured above). PRs have exciting blossoms. not sure if it’s even open all the way yet...it looks like there’s a second smaller flower inside waiting to unfurl its little petals. (i had a hard time getting a good angle for the photo, it’s in a tricky spot.)

my first tomato plant loss happened yesterday: a small mystery tomato, planted around the 15th of may. it wasn’t diseased, and it didn’t even look dead; it just wasn’t growing, at all. i think maybe it suffered some internal damage from that freak snowstorm. i would’ve given it more of a chance but it was in a bad spot anyway, so i pulled it out and replaced it with seeds for prickly caterpillars, dwarf sunflowers, and a nice-sized patch of carrots.

i’m planning on planting some seeds at the cabin, if the rains don’t wash them all away. i bought a special short-season quinoa to plant on the edge of the property where it abuts a big hill full of wildflowers and grasses...i’m not even going to clear any land, i’ll just scatter the seeds and see what happens. i might plant some salsify too--salsify grows wild all over the place there.

my mom said there’s a new thrift store in town that i need to check out. it took over the old video rental place, which is a considerable loss because that place was ridiculous and awesome--last time i went in they were still renting VHS, and the decorations were so quirky...it was a blast from the semi-recent past. but the new store benefits mcpaws, the local animal shelter, and thrift-store-for-good-cause beats movie store any day. here are a few pictures i took of the dear departed video store at night, from may 2009:

the contents page of mccall’s summer magazine issue features a 2-page spread of this photo i shot of katherine kayaking at the end of may last year. the weather in mccall this time last year was so perfect it hurt.