I’m writing on Monday this week. We had quite a day at work. It was very windy. Wind is my least favorite weather event, especially in combination with heat and dryness. I usually refer to it as an ill wind. Everyone seemed agitated on the job site. In fact, by day’s end I felt beat up.

Someone commented over the weekend that there were twenty-some weddings on-Island. Everyone lamented about the rain on Saturday ruining the festivities. I have always heard that rain on a wedding day is good luck – a wet knot is harder to untie.

Now that Violet has her learner’s permit, I have more time for observation. For example, I might never have noticed the blooming water lilies in the pond on South Road right before Beetlebung Corner. Also how wonderful is the vetch in the hay fields right past Polly Hill. I have some in my vegetable garden but certainly nothing like that. Vetch is a member of the pea family and often seeded into hay fields as an addition for silage. Because it is a legume, it will fix nitrogen and is therefore good for the soil.

If a person would create a meadow, winter rye and vetch could be planted in the fall – turned over in the spring and replanted with buckwheat for summer. It makes a nice white flower loved by honeybees. Then in the fall, till again and once more use rye and vetch. That spring, toss some wood, fleabane, and oxeye daisy seeds and there you have it. I like to leave the rye that year as its blue-green seed heads are very nice.

The rosa rugosa along Beach Road are looking good. I personally would avoid using them around the property. They tend to look very ragged in the summer. I’ve been known to cut them to the quick in the fall. Trust me, they always come back.

Besides the June roses looking fabulous, I am very fond of the old-fashioned orange daylilies interspersed with hydrangeas. It’s very Vineyard.

For the second year I’ve grown sugar beets. Last year I had the bright idea I would make my own sugar. As if! The beets, however, are a great addition to the vegetable garden. The greens are absolutely perfect – not bothered by any pests. The roots themselves are already the size of tennis balls from an early spring planting. They are pretty sweet so I use just one in a stirfry.

Every year I carry on about how much I loathe raccoons. They will kill chickens just for fun. This morning, I chased one off my second-floor deck. There are no stairs. He climbed right up the side of my house. Makes a person think twice about open windows.

A few years ago I was reading a seed catalog and came across an iberis called purple rain. Right then the radio announced that Prince had died. I promptly ordered a few seed packages.

Some have come back from a hard winter. They bloom all summer with a dark purple blossom. I highly recommend them.

Since I can no longer comment on our President this week (I’m too distressed over the children in custody on our southern border), I’m going to close with some more sane and decent heads-of-state.

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts.” John Adams.

“It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Harry S. Truman.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President...is morally treasonable to the American public.” Theodore Roosevelt.

“I appeal to you to constantly bear in mind that with you, and not with politicians, not with Presidents, not with office-seekers but with you is the question: shall the union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved?” Abraham Lincoln.