Where's the Rain?!?

According to our favorite Scandinavian meteorologist, this weekend was to be full of rain.  So, I planned to bake, clean, and do otherwise not-always-interesting tasks for the duration. However, I woke to birds chirping, sun, and a cold breeze.  Not sure what to do, or how to proceed, I did the only thing I could.

A pot of tea on the porch:

With the dogs:

After a lovely time with my new Ceylon from my favorite Aunt, a plan was hatched!  I decided to run gardening errands, waiting for the sun to shine and make yard work more pleasant. Or at least more warm.  I have been reading about corn gluten meal as an organic pre-emergent to fight lawn nasties such as crabgrass, dandelions, and about 20 others.  Corn gluten doesn't allow seeds to take root (note, ANY seeds, so don't go applying it where you want to add your own something or other) for 5-6 weeks after applying it to lawn/garden/veg beds, etc.

After a bit more research on-line, it seemed like a good thing to try, so I headed over to one of my favorite local sustainable nurseries, Mother Earth Gardens.  They had a big stack of bagged corn gluten, so I snapped one up (they have a Blue Sky Guide coupon, all of you Twin Citians) and came home to apply to the edges of my lawn:

Why just the edges? Well, is seems that the parts of the lawn closest to concrete, asphalt, sidewalks, etc. warm up a few weeks earlier than the center of the lawn, which is key since you want to apply the corn gluten when the soil temps are around 52-55 degrees F.  As an added bonus, the corn gluten has nitrogen in it as well (about 10 percent by weight), so you get some fertilzer action out of your weed prevention. I do want to watch the amount of nitrogen added, as too much is too much, regardless of the source.  My plan is to use it sparingly and see what happens.  My lawn is not picture perfect by any means, so there's really not too much worry that I'll do much harm.

By the time I got home, with a detour to the local Ace Hardware for my precious Shake-Away squirrel deterrent, it was far too windy to do anything with corn gluten. I didn't remember the stakes I needed to finish installing my landscape edging, and I couldn't set up my rain barrel since the hardware store didn't have any cinder blocks-so I was left with very few options:

And:

It's so nice to have neighbors with fun toys!