Preparing for the 'hurricane'...right.

 I  mean honestly, people are panicking and thinking we're Florida and will get flooded like New Orleans and 'oh my god what are we going to do?' It's been downgraded to a tropical storm. San Diego isn't flat, we have Baja to break some of the wind force before it gets here. We'll have wind and maybe rain but for pete's sake... Right now the overcast is that flat pale grey white, light gusty wind but nothing serious. Weather says we 'might' get rain around 3 and it's only noon right now. Rain somewhere in San Diego County. Which covers all the way to Julian and the mountains to the coast and up to Camp Pendelton.

The gardeners group especially are panicking, tying furniture down when the patio is surrounded by trees and the house. Bottle water is being snapped up like TP during the pandemic. My only concern is needing to have food we can eat without electricity if the power goes out. Then there's flowers in the garden and things are feeling okay.

I think that's an Encore azalea because they don't normally bloom in summer. The lantana is doing just fine again but the hibiscus barely bloomed after the shearing it got.

All the roses are pretty much bloomed out now, they had buds all at the same stage so they're blooming and then will be gone. Enough on that topic before my blood pressure goes up again.

Just reference photos for before and after the storm. I 'think' the cucumbers are taking, there are more new females coming up and males are keeping pace.

I grabbed a cotton swab to see if that worked better at grabbing pollen. I couldn't tell really and if it doesn't rain tomorrow morning I'll grab one of my small paint brushes and do another round.

 

Pictures from going out after dark last night. I had to use my flash it was that dark. There are three or four female flowers in these two photos.

That one on the left was one I hand pollinated, doesn't look like it's grown much but the flower has shriveled. Lots and lots of flowers as well as damage from pill bugs unfortunately. But there are a half dozen or more female flowers coming along.

I need a magnifier to tell whether a male flower has pollen ready or not. The flowers are so small and the stamen are so tiny in the middle. I got the q-tip in at least three different flowers but being a white cotton it was difficult to tell whether I got pollen on it or not. It might be raining tonight so may not get a chance to try again with a brush today.

 

Two more tomatoes practically falling off the bush this morning and might be trading some for figs from another local.

Wind has died down again and I thought I saw one of the hawks circling to get more altitude a little while ago. I don't know why I'm so calm and less than excited about the impending storm. Maybe because we've had storms like this before and there was a lot of rain and wind and yes some flooding but not where I am. We're expected to get about inch and a half or more of rain in different areas. I'll be happy to have rain on my garden but with my luck, we'll get a spattering and some gusty wind and my car will look like someone threw mud at it.