Long Time No Write

It's raining right now. Fall is a day or two away - official calendar fall, that is. The weather is still warm during the day, warm enough that light clothing is still the order of the day, so I'm not too sad.

Well, not yet. Give me a few more weeks of rain and I might alter that statement a bit.

We've let up a bit on 4-H summer madness around here, what with our fall fair officially over and school officially started. We're thinking about getting out the bird feeders so our resident bird population leaves off on the sunflowers, still waving languidly in the front garden, but these guys are grouchy about having to wait. Look at them - the glares I have to brave every time I go outside. Wait, is that a unibrow?

The garden did well, once the heat came our way. This was, as I've said before, the worst summer in memory. Yes, there were a couple of weeks there when it was hot, even at night, but for the most part most of my garden cronies are not thrilled with the state of their gardens this year. Things that did well? Tomatoes, pumpkins, peppers, berries (the blackberries were positively rhapsodic), tree fruit, beans and peas. Things that didn't do well? Cucumbers (pathetic, sob), eggplant, hot peppers, gourds. That said, for once I got the jump on the rain (and by extension the Potential Late Blight season) by bringing in most of my tomato crop while we were still basking in sun. The rest - the giant Roprecco plum tomatoes from the seeds my friend Samantha sent me - I wrapped in large sheets of plastic. So they are all out there sitting snugly while the rains drip softly down.

And in the meantime the birds sit. And wait. Expectantly. No pressure now, guys.