Honestly, I have no business ever complaining about the weather. I’ve been following national weather related stories this week — the horrible hundreds of fires in California and the Gulf Coast bracing for back-to-back hurricanes. I cannot imagine the stress of needing shelter from either of these scenarios in the time of Covid.

I noticed two comments on my column this last few weeks from friends I had not seen or heard from in years, maybe decades: Jake from Israel and Tom in Greece. Since I do no social media this was a fun and unusual surprise.

Tom suggested that my rodent problem in the tomato patch may be chipmunks. How I wish that were true. Sadly, I think with some evidence, that it is rats. They also dug up all my newly planted sugar snap peas and ate the seeds even before they germinated.

My favorite cucumber is Boothby’s Blonde. It is an heirloom from Maine that was passed on from the Boothby family through Seed Savers Exchange. It is cream color with a tender skin and is producing like crazy. I only planted it the beginning of July and it has outdone itself. I have had good luck in the past planting both zucchini and cucumbers after the summer solstice. They seem to avoid insect and fungus problems.

My July-planted green beans are ready for harvest. This is after all my dill has gone by. So much for my usual Dilly Beans this year unless I start searching around and/or begging from friends.

Now that Violet is home doing college work remotely, I am using her photographic skills each week. This week she took a shot of the Jimmy Nardello peppers. An Italian heirloom with a long history there, it was brought to Connecticut by the Nardello family in the late 1800s. I first learned of it from Rebecca Gilbert of Native Earth Teaching Farm on North Road. She talked about it at the Homegrown festival a few years ago. Homegrown met in the winter at the Ag Hall where we traded seeds and plants and gabbed about our gardens.

I grew some sorghum this year. It was well over 10 feet tall — that is until it was flattened by a storm a few weeks ago. It has a beautiful black seed head. One time Kristie Kingsbury gave me a small Christmas tree angel fashioned out of her own sheep’s wool. It held a tiny sprig of sorghum. I still have it.

In the perennial bed the Steeple Jackie daylily is in full and glorious bloom. The flower stalks are at least five feet tall with clusters of small fragrant blooms along the entire stalk. It works great in the back of the border and blooms when other daylilies are long passed.

Once a summer Violet and I have lobster. It seems like a “thing.” This year, in celebration of son Reuben’s birthday ,we did take-out clam and lobster bake from the Katama General Store. They do it every Monday evening and boy was it ever worth it. Oder early as it is a sell-out, understandably.

It’s rich that the Republicans are so concerned that Joe Biden is influenced by Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez . One would like to think that any red-blooded American would be more concerned that a sitting U.S. President seems to be enamored by the likes of Vladimir Putin or Recep Tayyip Erdogan Wait, there’s more GOP hypocrisy. Black protesters are lawless looters and rioters about to steal your suburbs but Mark and Patricia McCloskey can threaten protesters with guns and are given speaking spot at the Republican National Convention. What a world!