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chanceofrain.bsky.social
Emily Green
@chanceofrain.bsky.social
460 followers 380 following 2K posts
Gardener. For more go to www.chanceofrain.com
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chanceofrain.bsky.social
This is a system that I saw in a garden in Cotherstone, County Durham, in the UK. Most gardens here do not have irrigation but do have dry spells so gardeners rig systems to collect water to serve their vegetable plots and greenhouses. This is a clever, no frills system that I much admired.
Perched barrels, most simple garbage cans, connected by simple PVC tubing fill with rain then spouts carry overflow to the next can There is now't so ingenious as an English gardener. Here a simple system of gutters attached to a shed and chicken coop collects rain for use in the green house and vegetable bed The gardener collects water from the open, lowest container in a watering can for his seedlings in his hoop house. It's been many years and I am embarrassed to say I forget this man's name. He is a neighbor of my English cousins and could not have been more generous with his time showing off the ingenious water-gathering system
November 18, 2025 at 1:43 AM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
I had to perch barrels in Altadena, which I left spigots-open hooked up to hoses that fed the water to an old orchard. Photos below show various systems.
An Altadena, CA system: Rain water is fed down a rain chain (just plain Ace Hardware chain, nothing fancy) into a wine barrel fitting with a spigot. The hoses redirect the water along a path into an orchard Altadena, CA: A simple hardware store chain guides water from a guttering a wine barrel that has been fitted with a spigot attached to a hose. The barrel is perched so, as water fills the barrel, gravity pushes it through the hose, which carries it out to the garden Altadena rain harvesting: Here you can see one of the rain barrel perches, designed by a neighbor, that was high enough off grade that gravity pushed water through the spigot and a connected hose as rain fell. This meant that, during rains, with a hose attached and spigot open, I could keep feeding water back to the garden, slightly uphill.
November 18, 2025 at 1:35 AM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
Time for pears poached in plonk. And maybe some pears with cheese. Or pears in a green salad. Or all of those things.
Dish with pears ranging from green to red and varieties in between from Washington State. In the center is the classic golden Bosc pear, and to the left is a bright green Anjou and to the right the Red Anjou. This mixed bag from the grocer Trader Joes will allow me to sample the flavors of various varieties, though the differences will be known only to me, the cook. I plan to peel them and poach them in wine with some citrus zest and star anise perhaps. All have the classic plump base and tapered stem behind the word "pear-shaped"
November 12, 2025 at 3:39 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
The Commander in Chief of the United States of America on his "personal Vietnam." From the fact-checking website Snopes: www.snopes.com/fact-check/t...
In an exchange verified by the fact-checking website Snopes, the President of the United States in conversation with radio host Howard Stern claims that he never contracted a sexually transmitted disease and describes his avoidance of them as "my personal Vietnam" and adds, "I feel like a great and very brave soldier."
November 12, 2025 at 1:48 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
Every gardener has a signature. Mine in LA and now Baltimore is breaking up concrete paths and driveways to replace them with rain gardens. This link is to a before-and-after photo essay on the 4-year mark of conversion from a conventional to native garden in Baltimore www.flickr.com/photos/51923...
Small brick house in north Baltimore has a remnant conventional garden of hard mown grass, a bank of vinca and ivy, a root-bound Japanese maple, and mauled hedge of azalea and yews The grass and bank of vinca and ivy have been removed for a mixed planting of evergreens (native junipers, holly and inkberry) with a bright flush of perennial native wildflowers including black-eyed Susans, coneflowers, hyssop and milkweed. the foundation hedges have been allowed to branch out into more natural forms that hold light in a more vibrant and pleasant way
November 4, 2025 at 4:13 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
Today is game 3 of the US World Series for baseball. Rooting for Canada and the Toronto Blue Jays
A bowl holds a collection of baseballs. Next to it is a straw hat. Behind it is a garden. The image is of innocent summer pleasure
October 27, 2025 at 11:21 AM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
The shorter name is better
The satirical sculpture, titled "Best Friends Forever," by artistic group Secret Handshake, features Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein skipping hand in hand. A real sculpture, it was placed on the National Mall with a permit but removed after it became clear it was mocking the friendship between the president and child sex predator. The artists recovered the sculpture and it reappeared on the Mall, becoming a comic symbol of the resistance. This image of the President's proposed ballroom has the doors labeled the "Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Ballroom" and an image of the "Best Friends Forever" sculpture superimposed in the center, as if the President and his procurer friend are gleefully dancing.
October 25, 2025 at 1:30 AM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
I used to live in Los Angeles County, where the parrots loved hackberries and mulberries. Here they are flying over my old orchard in Altadena
A painting of parrots flying over an orchard that I used to tend in Altadena, California. The parrots roosted in Temple City, a couple of small "cities" over in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley, and they would head out every day to botanize their ways across the suburbs where remnant trees from the region's largely defunct fruit farms still grow in back yards
October 21, 2025 at 10:53 AM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
Overwhelming proportion of honk-vote from passing motorists to abolish ICE at Saturday sign-waves in Northern Baltimore.
October 13, 2025 at 12:08 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
Too cool for plaques
But can they sing? "Trio of Trout," three small sculptures of trout made out of felt by artist Lauren Loren, share the kitsch quality of wall-mounted singing trout, but leave the Maryland paneled basement-Stranger Things vibe behind. The fuzziness gives them a luminous quality in the low October afternoon light near a window at the Towson Arts Collective.
October 9, 2025 at 11:01 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
A Twitter post introduced me to my dog (thank you again, for posting it)
The image is of an e-mail from Morris Animal Refuge in Philadelphia approving me to adopt a dog after I saw a listing for it posted by @goldengateblond on Twitter. I live in Baltimore and I thought reading the Tweet, "If I were in San Francisco, I'd adopt that dog." Then I double checked the listing and saw that MAR is in Philly, an hour and change up the road. So I applied on line, and got this e-mail, before putting down my coffee, telling my other (lonely, solo) dog, "I'll be back in four hours with a friend for you," and drove to Philly. Morris is the oldest animal refuge in the country, in a very old tangle of tiny streets, and it's tiny itself and quite hectic. Think the George Booth version of Hill Street Blues. But there was the Twitter pup and I was back with a new friend for my dog and now beloved member of the family as promised. The springs under the upholstering in the seat of my late Dad's favorite chair are now poking through the seat, requiring many layers of pillows in the library. My dog Morris approves. This is a photo of her luxuriating in it.
October 9, 2025 at 12:08 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
Four years ago today, carrying moving boxes into a new Baltimore home, an impulse-purchased book reduced to local-color-guest-room-prop dropped heavily on my foot. Coincidence, this happening on 10/7? Probably, but it is unread no more. RIP Edgar Allan Poe, benighted poet and empath for the doomed
This thick and heavy book, The Annotated Poe, a collection of poetry and novels of Edgar Allan Poe, slipped from a moving box when I was carrying it into my new home in Baltimore. It had been an impulse purchase when I first moved to Baltimore that had been reduced to the indignity of guest-room-prop. (Poe died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849.) Later in the day, reading snippets about Poe in the local newspaper, I realized the move was on the anniversary of his death. Began reading that book, still free from its box, that very day and progressed to a book about Poe's life and death, which revealed that Baltimore's signature poet was actually more rightly property of Philadelphia. The torrent of hardships he survived are hard to comprehend now, though we seem headed back to the cruel times that produced them.
October 7, 2025 at 12:06 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
Harvest moon rising over Baltimore, Maryland. Photo: Martha Johnston
October 7, 2025 at 12:41 AM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
#westwater #ColoradoRiver Click on the URL to be taken to a new white paper by Eric Kuhn, Anne Castle, John Fleck, Kathryn Sorensen, Jack Schmidt, and Katherine Tara introduced by John Fleck www.inkstain.net/2025/10/the-...
For the second time in its history, the 1922 Colorado River Compact is a limiting factor in the operation of Lake Powell. But unlike the mid-70s when Article III (d) (75 maf every 10 years) limited the rate at which Lake Powell could be filled, this year, the stakes are much higher.1 The Secretary of the Interior could be faced with a choice between protecting the integrity of the power generating facilities and outlet works at Glen Canyon Dam or triggering litigation between the Upper and Lower Division States over disputed compact issues.
October 6, 2025 at 11:20 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
from destruction in a city pound. But she was ill when Morris took her in & they pegged her as 12. After care from a vet & meds, her age kept being revised downward, until my vet here said, "Maybe they meant 12 months." Photo below is from Nov 2019, as her puppy-tude became apparent.
Photo of Morris, rescued in 2019, from Morris Animal Refuge in Philly. She's propped up along the back of a couch facing the front door, always watching what's up with a "what're we doing next?" quality. You cans her stocky little build. In a previous life, she was probably a working dog, a ratter maybe. In this one, she makes sure she's in on everything that happens in my house and what the squirrels are doing outside.
October 3, 2025 at 7:16 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
YES. Kelly Loeffler led the Small Business Administration in demanding notices go up on its web sites & voice mails that the shut down is caused by Dems. @democrats.senate.gov @housedemocrats.bsky.social we need a #shadowcabinet for comprehensive messaging
Screenshot of a message that disgraced former Senator Kelly Loeffler put up on the website of the Small Business Administration put up on the federal website blaming Senate Democrats for the shut down. It has a hot red box carrying a petty tirade that opens, "Senate Democrats voted to block a clean federal funding bill (H.R. 5371), leading to a government shutdown that is preventing the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) from serving America's 36 million small businesses," and then it redirects those seeking disaster assistance to another shut down website with the same shut down message. The use of the websites for political messaging is in clear violation of the Hatch Act. To File a complaint about that, go to this web page. No illegal message in the place that is supposed to patrol the illegal messages. The bad news? Trump fired the head of it, and the head of the office of government ethics, last February in sweeping purges of non-partisan watchdogs https://osc.gov/Services/Pages/HatchAct-FileComplaint.aspx
October 3, 2025 at 1:39 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
Here she is when I brought her home to Baltimore in September 2019 and here she is squirrel watching by my back door a couple of days ago. You posted her listing on Twitter. I put in an application the moment I saw it, drove to Philly, and brought her back. And here she is with her friend Frannie
October 3, 2025 at 3:33 AM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
A screen grab of a paragraph from an September 24, 2025 article by retired Army lieutenant colonel and judge advocate Daniel Maureron why Trump's orders to destroy boats and their occupants in foreign waters on the unproven assumption that they are drug runners exposes military staff involved to criminal liability. This article has a audio version that can be found at this link https://www.justsecurity.org/121167/us-servicemembers-liability-lethal-strikes/
September 25, 2025 at 12:30 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
Some spider
A large spider's web is pictured in a late summer garden. It's the work of an orb weaver, the type of spider featured in EB White's classic children's book "Charlotte's Web."
September 25, 2025 at 4:31 AM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
This is my Wally, maybe the sweetest dog who ever lived and who I will never stop missing
Wally, a mixed breed white terrier, was blind when he was picked up with two dachshunds after 4th of July in Los Angeles. He was adopted from the North Central Animal Services Center and it only became evident when I got him home that he was stone blind. Here he is after a move to Baltimore, where his best friend Radar, a Jack Russell, used to guide him off lead around Federal Hill Park every morning. Before he died, Wally had his cataracts removed and could briefly see. He had mentally mapped his world so well, the only thing that seemed to surprise him when he first saw them was the sight of the very steep stairs in our 1880s row home. This even though he used to run up and down them when he was sightless.
September 6, 2025 at 11:56 AM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
My crack photographer and naturalist neighbor, Martha Johnston, just snapped this shot of a goldfinch and Eastern swallowtail browsing on hyssop (Agastache ) in my native flower garden out front #nativegardening #Baltimore #gardening
A goldfinch and swallowtail browse in a stand of Agastache (hyssop). Also seen is a vibrant magenta head of a coneflower and, in the background, spires of tall, fine leaved Muhly grass
August 17, 2025 at 6:05 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
OMG it's in Baltimore
A worn kitchen broom sits on steps with flowerpots and a small dog outside a door with a curtain screen
August 15, 2025 at 12:59 AM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
Hello, beautiful
A yellow and black-striped Monarch caterpillar moves along a stem of a milkweed (Asclepius tuberosa). Our native milkweeds are a key host plant for the butterflies
August 12, 2025 at 6:29 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
As mid-Atlantic wildflowers reach peak bloom in August through October, the gardens at the US National Arboretum in northeast #Washington DC reach peak glory. However this safe, gorgeous, family-friendly public garden is good all four seasons as the winter photo attests. Free. www.usna.usda.gov
Asters bloom in the late summer meadow at the US National Arboretum in Washington DC. Photo: Ruxandra Arustei/Getty Images A child cycles by winter meadow at the US National Arboretum on a perfectly clear and lovely winter day. Photo: Emily Green
August 12, 2025 at 1:18 PM
chanceofrain.bsky.social
And a v. cool insectarium shaped like a birds nest
An insectarium made of sticks and shaped like a giant bird's nest to help emerging pollinators and birds in early spring as an educational feature from the US Forest Service along Washinton's Mall.
August 11, 2025 at 6:54 PM