Falling asleep to the sound of thunder

I love sleeping with the windows open, a cool breeze blowing across the bedroom and the distant sound of thunder booming off the mountains. Saturday it rained almost all day bu the actual rainfall level was tiny. So tiny that I had to water the garden yesterday as the tomato plants were crying and shriveling up a little. I was almost annoyed, a whole day of rain and still had to drag the hose out, but it's for a good cause. Sunday it rained from about 6pm until 3am, a real rainfall this time, the yard looked awesome this morning as it struggles to recover from 3 weeks of 100 degree weather.

Visited our friends who were finally back home, the area looks bizarre with all these large expensive homes that look perfect and then some foundations filled with melted vehicles and burnt wood. We didn't drive around the brunt out neighborhoods, it was already overloaded with people gawking. Our friends had several spots on the back deck that were almost fires but the hot shot brush crew did an amazing job only losing 3 houses down the hill. The top of the hill was abandoned shortly after the fire popped into town, it was too risky in case the fire swept around and burnt back up.

Front deck looking east

Driving to friends, right of dead center is their house, and that's where the fire stopped

We picked up a truckload of mulch and put some down in the corn and around the blueberry bushes and a few other plants. We thinned out the beans, radishes, lettuce and corn. The pumpkin plants got some TLC, they are getting really big and the zucchini finally flowered last night. I lack patience at times, especially when we want fresh garden veggies with dinner and have to head to the store instead of the yard.
All this thinning meant I had a great home salad with butter lettuce, radishes, sweet pepper, blueberries, strawberries and tomatoes. In real money this salad cost me about $10 with seed and water but since we have easily devoured $40 in tomatoes I'm way ahead. I have about $40 of tomatoes waiting to ripen currently, not sure if I'll even get any canned, nothing like a good tomato sandwich.

We discovered some sewer line work needs to done and we are debating digging the line ourselves instead of paying to have it done. It will save us about $800 but if you have dug in Colorado clay then you know that it's a backbreaking ordeal to dig down 7 feet deep, 10 feet long and 4 feet wide. Sometimes it's worth it to just pay, but I think I'll give it a go and see just how much of a fight it will be. Clay, roots and a huge hole... I might have lost the battle before it started. I know we can do it manually if we really have to but we are fortunate that we have a choice.