Today is St Dunstan’s Day. Dunstan was a beloved bishop of Glastonbury in the early 10th century. He used his skills at casting bells and crafting music to bring beauty into his church. He believed music both glorified god and brought more people into the fold. Today, he is the patron of bell ringers, and his day is marked with chimes and pealing bells. He is also patron of bell makers and many other sorts of smithing and metalwork. I’ve also seen his name associated with brewing, though I can find no reason for that.
That is all well and good, but St Dunstan’s Day is also a notable weather marker. It is one of several days in May that sees a resurgence of winter weather. If the Three Chilly Saints don’t being the cold on the 11th through the 13th nor Cold Sophie on the 15th, there’s one last shot for winter on the 19th.
Here in Vermont we’ve had a cold May, but the middle of last week was warmer, hitting 80°F briefly on Thursday, Cold Sophie’s Day. But on Friday one of the worst storm systems I’ve seen in New England blew in. Friday night saw about 1/2″ of rain, fierce wind and electrical storms all night long. Saturday started out quiet with showers on and off until midday. But at about 2pm Nature took the gloves off.
It got rather biblical here for a bit. My town got about 2 1/2″ of rain in about 40 minutes, and then it just kept on with lighter showers the rest of the day and through the night. The rivers didn’t breach, but the storm drains couldn’t handle that flow and downtown was flooded for a few hours. The roads around my house were rivers. My garage was a pond, but so was the dirt lot behind my neighbor’s house. I’ve never seen water pooling there before. Might be because there are no more maples back there to filter the water. Or maybe the rain was just that heavy.
At the worst, water was sheeting down the windows on the west side of my house, like being in a car wash. The wind tossed my maples around as if they were saplings. Unsurprisingly, the honey locust lost a couple more limbs. But the terrifying part was the lightning. Ordinarily, I love electrical storms, but not this one. The windows were rattling so hard I feared they might crack. There was hardly a break between one crash and the next, and you couldn’t count one second between flash and thunder. Being in a mountain valley, most of the actual discharge was above us. So I don’t think there was any cloud to ground discharge in my neighborhood, but I stayed away from the windows nonetheless. The power flickered off and on several times, indicating that transformers were going down. My cat was terrified. I’ve never heard her make those noises before…
The worst only lasted about 40 minutes, but it kept raining lightly all night and there were several more rounds of lightning and thunder into Sunday morning. Sunday was dark and windy with fitful showers, but no more electricity. It was also nearly 30° cooler. Saturday the high was near 80°F; Sunday it never got much above 50°. And today, St Dunstan’s Day, the high is supposed to be 45°. St Dunstan’s cold is predicted to hang out with us through the week, though it won’t be quite as cool as it is today. It’s also supposed to be wet all week. Actually, the forecast on Weather Underground has rain every day for the next ten days. Yay…
However, I did manage to buck up and get some of the garden backlog done on Sunday. I got thoroughly soaked and muddy, but I didn’t have to haul water to all the new plantings. I feel this is an acceptable trade-off. The bank around the veg garden has been cleared of crap sumac, alder and creeper; and all the new hedge bushes and small trees are planted. I also put some blueberries in next to the garage and a few blackberries in with the hops. The basement plants have been moved outdoors, some to harden off on the south side of the house, some in pots where they will live all summer. With the potting bench cleared, I decided to start my Brussel’s sprouts and some small pots of flowers — marigolds, nasturtiums and nigella. Next weekend, I will plant out the broccoli and chile starts and reclaim the plastic trays for more starts. This year, I’m going to start the winter squash and some of the sunflowers in paper pots in the basement so that I have half a chance of getting some plants out of the seeds. Though I also bought more metal fencing — which is working! I have peas that are a foot tall and nary a rodent in the cage.
Unfortunately, with all this happening on the weekend, little happened on the computer. So this will be a very light posting week. I can already feel my hands stiffening up as I type. By the time you read this, I will probably be in serious pain. But at least I won’t be so worried. Ibuprofen works against the the aches. Nothing calms the fretting except removing the source… so that’s done now.
In any case, here are some pictures to make up for the lack of words…
And this was the soundtrack for the weekend… Weird reggae, because I was feeling nostalgia (played keyboards in a reggae band in college)… I have three Sumac Dub albums now. They were on repeat all weekend.
©Elizabeth Anker 2025
By My Solitary Hearth 
Your garlic and peas are looking great! That rain storm sounds horrible, glad there wasn’t any damage. Our May weather has been all over the place. After last week’s heat wave we’ve not quite made it to 50 for the last couple of days. The weekend is looking like it will be dry and mid 60s with the promise of 70s next week. Gardening perfection I hope!
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