Last week’s tropical storm got old very fast. The days of wind rattled my peace of mind. I will refrain from discussing how much worse it was in Puerto Rico.

My garden is beat up. The sunflowers and amaranth are all over the ground. Cucumber and squashes look burned from being wind-whipped. There are thousands of snails and slugs enjoying the rest of the tomatoes and peppers. The just-blooming fall pea crop is flattened. My yard looks like the end of fall. Leaves are everywhere except they are green.

Some properties on the water have salt-damage on old-established trees. Edgartown seemed to take a worse hit than we did, here in Vineyard Haven.

Right before the storm I picked all the peaches. This was a tree that was one of many planted by my children from the discarded pits of store-bought peaches. Some bloom pink in the spring, others white. Nonetheless one tree was loaded with fruit. Although tiny, it was perfect with no worms or bad spots.

As the storm raged, I peeled and ate quite a few but for the most part, tossed them one-by-one into the compost. What’s up with that? They rotted before they even ripened.

They did, however, support an amazing population of fruit flies. This brings me to the natural world in fall. Wow! There are spiders and bees everywhere. I wonder if the storm brought out more than usual or have I been less than observant in the past.

There are Canada Geese all over the place. I bet I saw 100 in the Litchfield Farm field. Then, just past the fairgrounds, a big flock of turkeys was ravaging the Whiting Farm corn field on the big bend by the West Tisbury cemetery.

I walked away from my hoop-house in late spring. It never received a sip of water nor was a single weed pulled. Finally, it’s weeded and turned over ready for late fall and winter plantings. Remarkably, several kale plants survived the desert conditions. They stayed alive in pure powder. The will to live is a powerful force. I cut it back and started watering again. I wonder if it will produce some tender shoots after the weather cools.

I’m crazy about the tiny asters blooming everywhere. Some are white but I am particularly fond of the pale blue ones. I do recognize them in the spring and do not weed them out of my perennial beds.

I grew quite a few birdhouse gourds this year. I love the white tropical-looking flowers. The vines have made it quite far up the garden fence and have produced very interesting fruits. I wish I had more of an artistic touch. Painted, they would make great Christmas presents. I’ll probably put them in a basket and look at them now and then. Oh, well.

It was a very depressing week’s end. For starters, the Ken Burns documentary, The Viet Nam War, brought up some old and sad memories. Then add in the human suffering in Puerto Rico, the continuing recovery from the devastation in parts of Texas and Florida and the looming fear of war with North Korea. But our president seemed unmoved by any of this and took on the NFL over not standing for a song. For the life of me, I cannot figure out what is disrespectful about kneeling. Is it a law that we need to stand for the National Anthem? Is a person kneeling at the communion rail disrespectful of God?

Finally, the icing on the cake of the weekend — six top aides in the White House, including Jared and Ivanka have been using private emails. Now, that’s rich!