Last Saturday’s near miss that simply gave us rain did a number on the garden. Things are looking pretty bedraggled.

The once-spectacular five-foot-tall tithonia — also known as Mexican sunflower — were broken and scattered on neighboring beds. I don’t see the plant for sale very often as a spring seedling but tossing a few seeds around will reward you by August. It comes in both orange and yellow and is a huge attractor of monarch butterflies. They are the same color as the orange variety.

At first glance, my big patch of milkweed looked as though it was covered with the orange larvae of the aforementioned monarchs. Sadly, they were baby milkweed aphids. Words cannot adequately describe this pest. It’s worth a trip into the Google to see a photo. Ick!

I spent the rainy weekend hovered over the kitchen sink, peeling and coring two milk crates of my own apples. I made a nice chunky applesauce and popped several pint jars into a quick 10-minute water bath. It could use a bit of sweetener when opened this winter or it could simply be mixed with plain yogurt for breakfast.

I did a fair amount of complaining but no one cared. Most of my troubles are self-inflicted so I should just shut my pie hole.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned the basic recipe for pickled beets and/or onions is one quart of good apple cider vinegar to one cup of honey. The unprocessed jars will keep in the fridge until Christmas.

Another casualty of last week’s wind was the sorghum. I grow a little bit as

I love putting it in a dried ornamental arrangement in winter. It’s an interesting grain crop. In the early 1970s, we lived with another couple, Beth and Jay, for a short while. They took off for a newly-formed commune in Summertown, Tenn. known as “The Farm.” It was founded by Stephen and Ina May Gaskin. You may remember Ina May’s book Spiritual Midwifery?

Anyway, our friend Jay was put in charge of the sorghum mill.

A relatively-new organization called Sorghum United has formed from that endeavor. It is hoping to promote more widespread use of sorghum as a weapon in the fight against world hunger.

I received a nice letter via the Gazette office from Anne Koval, a woman in South Holland, Ill. She, a retired public school teacher, and her late husband took many day trips to the Vineyard over the years.

She lives near Chicago but grew up in western New York on a dairy farm. I especially loved this sentence, “I was the wood stove girl, with my own chopping block, ax and sawbuck until I went away to college.”

Thank you, Anne, for your well wishes and thoughtfulness.

Good for Joe Biden. His decision to join the picket line with the striking auto workers was a first for a U.S. president.

Given the steadily-rising costs of everything in the present economy, everyone needs more money.

What’s fascinating to me is that the auto industry pays its top executives 400 times more than the average worker.

Part of Trump’s appeal to make America great again targeted the time period between FDR and Reagan when manufacturing jobs were good jobs.

Even Henry Ford understood that those making his cars needed to make enough to actually buy one.

Strong unions and their power to bargain for better wages created “good” jobs.

When lower and middle-class people do better, society as a whole will thrive and perhaps some of the partisan divide could be crossed. One can only hope!