Friday, July 18, 2025

This is the seventy-second installment of West Wind, your weekly drop of thoughts, ideas, and info for this Season.

Wowee! I can’t believe I actually got through a whole week of posts. That hasn’t happened for a while now, and I don’t know when it will happen again. Definitely not next week, since I’ll be out of town, though I will have limited internet access, which is unusual.

There’s been a lot of rain in our area recently, with daily thunderstorms culminating in a massive monsoon last night that clocked in at nearly four inches of rain in a few hours. I had the fortune to be traveling during that time, and could barely see the road. Fortunately, it was still daytime, but later that night when returning home, we didn’t have the same luxury. It was dangerous at best, and our phones kept warning us of flash flooding. Thankfully, the only flashes we saw were the frequent lightning strikes. The roads we used didn’t have any issues and we made it back to our new house safely.

That got me thinking about rain, and what kind of Florabeast would enjoy a good downpour. Certain species of brassica, like turnips, radishes, and cabbage (all in the same family, how strange) have leaves shaped like cups that channel rainfall down to the central stalk. So, today’s Florabeast is based on one of those! I can imagine most Florabeasts going outside to soak up the rain whenever they can, since it would save them the effort of finding water in the ground when they root for the evening. Two of the plants I mentioned above have already had their Florabeasts featured in a story, so this Frontier Friday will be an invitation to read and listen to one or both of them. Thanks for being awesome and I’ll be back next week!