I wish I had gone to weather school. I am always interested in the subject. Usually, in August I start fretting about the possibility of hurricane. This year, the experts say that the El Niño in the Pacific will most likely deter storms forming in the Atlantic. They are predicting a snowy winter, which is fine with me.
The photograph by Ray Ewing in the last week’s column brought back some memories. I had a donkey in the eighties. His ancestors were taken out west by the gold miners. Five hundred of them were captured in Death Valley. They had been destroying the ecology of the national park, including turning on water in the various camping areas. I swear I did not make that up. They were shipped to Pennsylvania to be either adopted or turned into dog food. Because, as P.T. Barnum said: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
I adopted him. He was a lovable jerk and escaped on a regular basis. When he finally died in 1999, I wrote an obituary for him for the paper. Was that the beginning of my newspaper writing career?
Back briefly to the weather, I hear that this past July was hotter than the dust bowl. I finally headed to my personal dust bowl, my vegetable garden, to dig garlic. The bed was so weedy and overgrown I needed all of my plant recognition skills. I was, thankfully, rewarded with a decent amount of the hard neck variety. The soft-necks had already started regrowing, so I guess I will leave them for another year. Sigh!
While at the garden, I sat in my car listening to Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me on NPR. I also watched a baby goldfinch atop a weed thistle, painstakingly pick out one seed at a time. I wonder if life gets much better?
In the flower bed, I removed every single blossom from the impatiens. They were all back in full bloom the next day. These were the Sun Pat variety. They can take either shade or sun and are dependable color all season long.
Much of my garden has been taken over by weeds — notable Queen Anne’s Lace and tall Evening Primrose. There are a million “shoulds” in life. I should get to work weeding but, honestly, it’s very pretty and I don’t really need the extra space. It would simply stare at me accusingly needing to be planted.
I made my annual baby chick order. I get Cornish Game Hens. Thirty of them feed us for a year. I let them get quite large, so several meals can come from each one. They will arrive by the U.S. mail and create much attention. The breed is very fast growing. They can be ready as a small bird in a month. By four months, they can be eight or nine pounds. All it takes is time, money and nerve. I guess I still have all three.
I’m thinking about the senate cowards who confirmed the nomination of Todd Blanche. I slipped into the memory banks. In 1973, Eliot Richardson was attorney general. Richard Nixon ordered him to fire Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor in the Watergate case. Rather than comply, Richardson resigned, as did his deputy. Finally, Robert Bork did the job. As an aside, Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the Supreme Court. He was not confirmed by the senate. Anyway, will Todd Blanche ever say no to Trump?
This article appears in August 14, 2026.