I’ve never minded being out in the rain. I do not dash from the car, use an umbrella, or complain about it. I often suit up in proper gear and work happily in a fairly steady downpour. However, I’m very happy to come home, take a hot shower, put on dry clothing, and have soup and/or hot tea. This is the part of the Houston flood I find most difficult. The poor, soaking wet folks have to go into a church basement or school gym without the luxury of dry clothes or showers. Also, the horrible reality that your home will not be the same again. How often we take our homes and creature comforts for granted.

Bob Ganz in Chilmark phoned for the dilly bean recipe. I probably write it every year but it definitely can always bear repeating. Bring three cups of water and one cup of apple cider vinegar to a boil. Add two tablespoons of kosher, pickling, or sea salt, and several cloves of garlic.

Fill the sterilized pint jars with the clean, raw green beans and two heads of dill.

Fish a couple cloves of garlic out of the vinegar mixture for each jar. Cover with the hot liquid leaving one-half inch head space. Adjust the lids and rings and water bath for ten minutes. Enjoy all winter and then some.

I love to use the old-fashioned climbing petunias. I get the seed from Select Seed and start them inside a month or so before the last frost. They really should be planted alone along a fence. This year I placed them on the edge of a perennial bed. Oops.

They wended their way in and out of all the other plants in a very attractive manner. Until just recently, that is. I realized they were smothering a lot of smaller plants. I pulled them all up. The debris from one filled an entire bushel basket. I’m the queen of superlatives, but honestly, they were enormous. It’s sad without them but they served well.

Speaking of petunias, I had a memory. Some years ago I had a weekly job of dead-heading long boxes of petunias on a second floor deck. I tossed the spent blossoms as I picked them off the back side. One time, a bunny was below. He waited for each little flower head—sat on his haunches and ate it carefully. He then looked up and waited for another. Completely adorable.

My property is overrun with false bamboo. I won’t live long enough to eradicate it and believe me I try. There is a beautiful stand of it along Clevelandtown Road, past the Morning Glory Farm. I can understand how the first people to bring it here thought it would be a lovely addition to their late summer gardens. Bet they rue that day. We mow it and pull it but it is back in less than a week.

My other nemesis, mugwort, is thriving. My soil is particularly rich in a couple areas and it is over eight feet tall. How is that even right?

Another thing not at all right is the pardoning of Joe Arpaio. I’m sorry but what a coward we have for a president. He made the announcement on a Friday evening in the middle of a hurricane. He bragged it would bring him good ratings. Joe Arpaio can be seen on film claiming to be honored to be compared to the KKK.

It seems DJT just likes to aggravate liberals. I don’t even know what he actually believes. We do know he thinks very highly of himself and loves money.