Let me start with gratitude for having dodged the Henri bullet.

Memories of Hurricane Bob are forever etched in my mind. Therefore, I spent an entire day in storm preparations before the weather forecast abruptly changed. My friend Sharlee and I call it “cleaning up bucket town.” I put away plant pots, tools, furniture and odds and ends all over the property.

Granted, all of this needed to be done anyway, but not with the slight panic.

Also, since I have a well, the thought of a power outage hung over me. I filled buckets and jugs like a crazy person.

Again, Hurricane Bob and days of no power haunted me. If you recall, it was hot and humid with no relief from a shower, constant noise of chain saws and the inordinate number of bees and ants whose tree habitats had been destroyed.

At any rate, all is well.

I did do a big picking in the vegetable garden and spent last Sunday making tomato sauce with zucchini, eggplant, onions, and garlic. I hit it with the hand-held blender so family members could not detect any eggplant.

I was pleased to get about a half-bushel of paste tomatoes. I like the amish paste variety. They are quite large, meaty and ripen pretty much at the same time.

The heirlooms have yet to ripen, which is no big surprise since they’ve barely been in the ground for six weeks.

I washed and sorted several zip-lock bags of sun golds and popped them raw into the freezer. I’ll do something with them in mid-winter.

My first planting of zucchini has seen better days, so I yanked the plants. I can

use the area for some fall plantings. I know why the Irish loved their potatoes. They are so dependable. I laid them on the ground, covered with a lot of hay, and walked away. I may have set the sprinkler twice and still they did their best. I pulled one plant and filled a colander. Even though Henri was a big dud here on the Vineyard, I had a few casualties. Both corn and sunflowers were flattened and the plastic covering on the coop house was blown off. It was in disrepair, so it was not a surprise, but it’s one more thing added to the To Do list.

I can almost understand the original reason for importing the heinous Japanese knotweed. Right now, as it is blooming, it is rather pretty. Pretty, that is, to a person who does not understand its nature.

It is downright impossible to remove. Along Clevelandtown Road in Edgartown, I noticed a huge area last year that was obviously dead from poison. It is back again this year.

I went on Wikipedia and found two interesting facts. One, the roots can be up to 10 feet deep. Really. How is that even possible? Maybe I should invest in a backhoe.

Two: it is considered such a pest in the United Kingsom that some banks refuse mortgages to properties found to have it. I guess my usual advice to folks with it or mugwort to sell the property wouldn’t work there.

There is so much anecdotal evidence on the news lately of people behaving badly. As if the anti-vaxxers aren’t bad enough, now we have the anti-maskers. First of all, it’s a tiny piece of cloth. We all hate wearing it but for the love of God, people, please. I just want to be a good citizen. My two-year old great grandson puts his on without any complaining when we go to the store.

In other words: some adults in this country cannot even mirror the behavior of a two-year old.

The time of carrots to bribe people into getting the vaccine has to end. Time to bring out the sticks. They don’t need to get the jab; they just cannot go anywhere, like the rest of polite society.