I was all set to whine about the paltry amount of rain we got on Tuesday. Shame got the better of me after an NPR report about three million people displaced in Pakistan as a result of catastrophic flooding.

As promised last week, I have a few comments concerning my road trip out to Amherst to get Violet settled for her junior year.

First of all, the Mass Pike is a driver’s nightmare. I cannot remember encountering such a solid block of tractor trailers. We move an incredible amount of stuff around in this country.

Also: I travel at about 70 miles per hour and am by far the slowest vehicle on the road. I did see a sports car with a sunroof. A large dog’s head was enjoying the breeze. I did a double take.

I try to enjoy animal antics. We saw a squirrel eating a French fry in a parking garage, completely oblivious to cars coming and going.

The day before leaving the Island, Violet and I were on the left fork to South Beach when we saw a goat in a field with a wooden spoon taped to its horns.

How I digress! After a long day of moving and unpacking plus the re-arranging of dorm furniture in 90-degree heat with no air conditioning, we took a trip to Hadley. There were miles of field corn nearly ready for harvest and several acres of asparagus. Granted, it had all gone to fern but it certainly must have been an impressive spring crop.

Along the highway, loosestrife went on for miles. I know it is invasive but nonetheless very pretty.

The college campus had tons of enormous cement pots overflowing with red canna lilies and purple-leafed sweet potato vine.

I finally arrived back on the Island to an empty house. We love it when children and grandchildren grow and go about their happy, busy lives but it does take an emotional toll.

A few days of not picking in a vegetable garden is daunting. I have to stay ahead of the tomatoes. I need to pick all those that are nearly-ripe as various critters know the exact moment to ruin them. Now every horizontal surface in the kitchen is covered with the ones needing to be processed.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned cutting green beans down to about eight inches tall when they have seen better days. My friend Sharlee did it three weeks ago and is already picking nice, new beans. They re-bloomed in a matter of days.

I’ve mentioned crape myrtles several times. They are late-summer blooming, deer resistant and have lovely foliage. There is an impressive white one at the bank in North Tisbury next to Vineyard Gardens.

There are dwarf varieties in pink or purple that only get about four feet tall. They are great in a mixed foundation planting.

I’ve lived under a nuclear threat my entire life. I was in utero when the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ducked under desks in elementary school, was in high school during the Cuban missile crisis, fretted endlessly about Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and now what did DJT do with secret nuclear information?

He and his team of so-called lawyers have been entertaining and/or scaring us with various spins on the events.

As one commentator put it, “They are wandering in fields looking for rakes to step on.”