The Island is just beautiful this week. The trees have all leafed out and some of my favorites are in full bloom. For starters, the locust flowers which are pretty high up so could be missed, are such a lovely fragrance. Bring some in if you can reach them.

Then there is one of the best June-blooming shrubs, Kilkwitzia aka Beauty Bush. I don’t see it often. I have an impressive specimen over eight feet tall. I think I purchased it by mistake years ago.

The Lauren Grape opium poppy is blooming everywhere in the vegetable garden. It is an annual that readily self-seeds. I tossed some seed heads around the job sites last fall and they all came up. The key, of course, is recognizing the tiny babies in early spring and not weeding them.

I swear, I am able to plagiarize my own self. I’ve written this column so long that every year the same subjects get my attention. For example, the bearded irises smell like the color they are. I have purple ones (grape), orange (citrus) and white (vanilla). Its fun to point it out to children. They think I’m a big showoff. Last year I started several flats of camelot foxgloves. They are in full and glorious bloom this spring. It’s good to put a mass of them close together. They make a nice statement in family groups rather than alone. The same is true of delphiniums. Seeding and waiting a year is way more economical than buying one or two at the local nursery.

I finally got most of the tomatoes planted. It’s amazing how quickly they “come around” once freed from the confines of pots and flats.

Sadly, my eggplants and zucchini are under attack. I think it’s flea beetle but cannot find the culprit. I guess I’ll give them a dose of Diatomaceous earth. It is the pulverized bodies of tiny sea creatures. Supposedly it pierces the exoskeleton of certain insects and dries them out. We’ll see. Don’t forget to wear your mask while spreading it. It could damage lungs.

Speaking of lungs, every morning I think I have Covid. The sneezing and coughing caused by the incredible amount of pollen is becoming tiresome. Everything is covered with the stuff — the car windshield is a mess in the morning. What’s up with wipers? Why do they always break at exactly eye level for the driver. You know that has to be planned. I do not remember replacing them so often in the past.

Back, briefly, to pollen. I saw a bee so loaded with it, she could barely get airborne.

Three things caught my attention about the 75-year-old man who fell in Buffalo. Rew, Pa., is about an hour south of Buffalo. We had a similar relationship with the city that we on the Vineyard have with Boston. I will be 75 in a year (so will DJT, by the way). My mother died as a result of a fall. All that being said, I cannot get past all those policemen walking by a bleeding human being regardless of who he was. Who raised them? I understand that police have a separate cultural reference than civilians. I bet many of them when off duty would have stopped to help. I wax forever hopeful.

I never got past DJT mocking a disabled reporter during the 2016 Presidential campaign and still receiving votes. Why would any of this get better? I imagine God saying “Don’t make me come down there!”