The first is here and now. In spite of extremely dry weather, all is green, lush, and fresh. We're in mid-spring by now even though it's not yet April: the wisteria and lilacs are starting to open, and so are the Tea roses, a month early, while the once-bloomers and deciduous trees have begun to leaf out. The grass is full of little wild flowers, veronica, deadnettle, dandelions too, while the fragrant violets are almost done; the forsythia is hanging on for a while longer.

A rather casual project of last year that I wrote about here was the rose pergola around the outer perimeter of the paved terrace. DH built an ad hoc sort of pergola of rebar and bamboo, and I began training up 'Mme. Alfred Carriere', 'Duchesse d'Auerstaedt', 'Mrs. B.R. Cant', and 'Mme. Antoine Mari' onto it. I was wrong about the length of the pergola, by the way, only 40', not 45': DH measured it today. Later DH added a columnar oak beside the pergola, cutting a hole in the terrace for it. Everything looks great; the roses are very happy, though they still need some significant renewal pruning and training. I think all will go over the top of the pergola except MAM, but I hope MBRC will take over for her. The shade is extremely welcome, since we've been having high spring warm and sunny weather much of the time since mid-February--this is NOT normal--and the last thing we need is more sun and heat absorbed by the terrace paving. The more leafy greenness, the better.

Which brings me to Armageddon. We had a terrible drought in 2017, the province running completely out of water, which had to be brought in by truck from Genoa. Summer began a month early, and it was horribly hot, and was altogether the worst drought in eighty years: so I read, and I believe it. Well, this year looks like a repeat of 2019, except perhaps worse. It's as dry as it was then, but has gotten warm much earlier. The weather is beautiful, but I'm tired of it, and would love rain, clouds, moisture, for myself as well as for the garden and land.

To have such a year as 2017 was once can be understood as something that happens. To have a repeat two years later is worrying. I'm concerned for my garden, but not scared to death, but how about the area farmers? Agriculture is a major industry here. I imagine Armegaddon pulling over the horizon, a long train black against the sun.