After working in Edgartown on Tuesday, I took a drive down the right fork to South Beach and back on the left fork.

Besides the view of ocean and sky being fabulous, I must encourage you, dear reader, to make the trip. The field of cosmos is beyond spectacular. I wonder how many pounds of seed were used and who did it?

Then the huge field of pumpkins could be seen from both forks. There were some field trucks there so they may be all harvested by now.

Speaking of pumpkins, wow: there are so many at Morning Glory Farm that I hope those that don’t sell get fed to livestock. Cows and pigs love them.

A few years ago I drove past a house on State Road where chickens roam free. Several had their heads buried in the spent jack-o’-lantern. I laughed out loud!

Since pumpkins seem to be one of the most seasonal decorations this month, perhaps we should talk about other garden material.

There are so many nice choices for the perennial beds right now.

I’ve never been a fan of the “bomb” type of mum. They are everywhere, next to the aforementioned pumpkin. They only last a few weeks, then look mighty sad. Plus they rarely, if ever, come back the following spring, even when planted well and tended.

Conversely, the hardy or garden mum is a star. It multiplies over the years and is loved by bees. There are several varieties of note — Clara Curtis, Penelope Pease or several colors in the Sheffield series.

Also, I noticed that the nicotiana cultivar Bella is particularly long lived in the annual bed. It benefits with some serious deadheading during the growing season.

I’ve been noticing some dead trees in my travels; that, I do not mind.

At Lee Fierro’s former home on Skiff avenue in Vineyard Haven there is a perfectly-pruned but clearly dead fruit tree in the front yard. It is architecturally pleasing and I hope lasts a little longer. Don’t forget Lee’s memorable performance as the bereaved mother of the little boy shark victim in Jaws.

As far as the vegetable garden, I checked on my beets. These are the Lutz winter keepers. They get quite large. I do pull them around the first freeze as they tend to get mushy if they freeze. The term “winter keeper” does not refer to staying in the ground. I pull them, cut the tops, dry them enough to wipe off dirt and store them in a paper bag in the fridge. They are good until February but generally get eaten before then.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a newspaper column six days a week from 1935 until 1961. God bless her!

A friend sent me a copy of her Jan. 7, 1941 column. It was written afer the State of the Union address in which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt listed the four freedoms and the Land Lease Act. Indulge me as I quote her:

“It did not seem to me anything in the message was of more interest to the Democrats than to the Republicans...

I was not only astonished but saddened to notice that the applause came almost entirely from the Democrats and only a few notable exceptions on the Republican side raised a hand in approval at any point. It looked to me as though these members of Congress were saying to the country as a whole, ‘We are Republicans first. We represent you here in Congress not as citizens of the United States in a period of great crisis but as members of a political party which seeks primarily to promote its own partisan interests.’

This to me is shocking and terrifying . . . an act of childish spite in such a serious moment in history.” This ends the quote.

There you have it!