I spent the entire weekend moving sprinklers around. As I recall, July is notorious for lack of rain. The weather forecasters keep promising but nothing of any substance happens. I am happy, however, for you vacationers. The beaches are overflowing. I will say that the crazy amount of traffic makes me wonder if, in fact, folks are at the beach.

Speaking of traffic, I have been busy teaching Violet how to navigate in the Vineyard high season. She has her learner’s permit and is ready at a moment’s notice. I did tell her that the only real rule is that everyone else is an idiot. I’m sporting quite a few new gray hairs.

I must have a built-in forgetter. Every year I make a mental note-to-self to remember how big plants get as I cram as many as humanly possible into a bed. I never act accordingly. Take my advice — I’m not using it!

I began harvesting garlic. The tops have withered and they have formed paper around each clove. As usual, I over-planted so I have been distributing to friends.

Often I lament about my various garden-related mishaps. A few weeks ago I tripped over a hose carrying an armload of tools. In a vain attempt to save myself, I catapulted into a large peony. I emerged with a broken rib. Trust me, you do not want to copy that. Laughing, coughing, sneezing and even deep breathing are impossible.

Now is the time for serious dead-leafing of the daylilies. It keeps them looking their best even as the blooms begin to fade. Be careful as you perform this simple task as the buds are easily knocked loose.

My lettuce has seen better days. I never care for it midsummer. Hence the reason I grow and love cabbage. Violet and I enjoy a simple salad of it most suppers. The early Jersey wakefield variety is ready right now. I had a problem early on with the cabbage moth larvae but one dose of Dipel did the trick. That’s the brand name of a BT product. It gives the worm a bacteria preventing it from further eating.

For many years, I pulled milkweed re-seeds. Since I read the Barbara Kingsolver book Flight Behavior, I developed a new appreciation for the plant. It is, of course, the main food of the monarch butterfly. Right now the milkweed is blooming happily and creates a meadow-like look in the vegetable garden paths.

I have poked fun at some of the garden uses for used nylon stockings. I need to rethink this behavior. Marie filled one with soil and placed it on the edge of a raised flower bed. It is stopping water from flowing off the very dry bed when the sprinkler is trying to do its job.

Just when you think our President cannot possibly create more chaos, he goes on a European jaunt in which he disrespects our allies and climbs into the big bed with the dictator of Russia! It’s really becoming frightening, not to mention downright depressing.

More words from our past.

“You may give a man an office but you cannot give him discretion.” Benjamin Franklin.

“I would rather a man who presents something for my consideration subject me to a zephyr of truth and a gentle breeze of responsibility rather than blow me down with a curtain of hot wind.” President Grover Cleveland.

“People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.” Stephen Hawking

“In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.” Abraham Lincoln.