Hurricane Bob is etched in my memory. It was a wind event with no rain. It blew leaves from the trees and vegetables. The wind was salt-laden so plants suffered greatly. Oddly, that fall, lilacs, forsythia and other spring shrubs bloomed as if they went through a winter. The power was out for days, bees and ants were everywhere as their homes have been destroyed and the endless sound of chainsaws put all of us on edge.

The threat of another rainless tropical storm on Tuesday caused quite a bit of anxiety for me. As I write this (on Tuesday afternoon), things seem fairly calm, thank goodness.

I have let the vegetable garden totally get away from me. I cannot even keep up with the picking. I know – this is a first world problem and I hesitate to even mention it!

I hauled out the canning equipment. I did my first harvesting project of the season. I made several pints of pickled beets and onions. It is simply apple cider vinegar and honey and 10 minutes in the water bath. I serve them in the winter with an equal amount of olive oil. They are a big hit with my pickle-loving family.

Violet helped make a batch of sauerkraut. She picked 30 small cabbages. I chopped and she squished with salt until the cabbages released enough liquid to cover themselves. Hopefully 10 days in the crock will complete the fermentation process.

I love Goldsturm rudbeckia at the exit of Cronig’s. It’s a sturdy, cheerful plant that comes back reliably every year and will reseed.

I have white cabbage moths hovering around the nepeta. It seems strange since nepeta cannot have an attractive order for them.

Japanese beetles have been decimating the leaves of the perennial hibiscus. My worker, Sue, pointed out something which gave us a reason to speculate. One of the branches of the aforementioned hibiscus had grown into a Snow Fairy caryopteris. It was untouched by the beetles. We figured the caryopteris smells so awful that they were deterred!

I should inter-plant it with the daylilies. Maybe it would repel deer – as if!

I had every intention to pick my row of Jacob’s Cattle bush beans while they were young enough to eat as a fresh-shelled bean. Since it is so ridiculously dry, they promptly went directly to a dried bean. I yanked them all and have them ready to shell on newspaper.

For those of you who do not know the Jacob’s Cattle story from the Old Testament, he was told he could keep sheep and cows with different-colored markings as his own. He wisely did some genetic mumbo-jumbo and was able to get the multicolors in most of the babies by secretly running a male into the herd at night. The bean has similar markings of maroon and white. It is a New England heirloom related to kidney beans.

So much news every week – I have to back up a little bit. The right wing has no problem with Trump’s new “law and order” campaign. Sending troops of unknown origins into cities to quell protests seems like a great solution to a few broken windows and some graffiti. As I recall, when Obama sent the bureau of land management officials into Oregon to settle a dispute over federal land with the Bundys, the head of Shawn Hannity exploded. Oh, did I mention guns, not graffiti, were involved?

Speaking of guns—Trump supported the assault-rifle-armed protesters entering the state capitol of Michigan.

How can I not comment on the foot dragging of the G.O.P. in the support of the House of Representatives bill to extend the $600 per week help to unemployed, desperate people? The annual salary of a United States senator is $174,000 and it seems they take an inordinate number of days off! Covid did not take their job from them! The only thing they have to fear about their job security is forgetting to constantly praise the Donald.