I’m a hopeless watcher of news. The catastrophic flooding after Hurricane Helene has received my undivided attention. The countryside looks exactly like the mountain town of my youth. Rew, Pa. was located at the top of one of those mountains and was, therefore, immune to floods. The valleys below often were inundated by overflowing creeks.

But never did I see what the folks are experiencing in North Carolina and Tennessee. It certainly puts my life in perspective.

Last week’s rain and wind here beat up the dahlias. Many were dislodged from their stakes and are in need of some serious cutting back. The thing about dahlias is they need to experience a freeze before the tubers can be lifted and stored for winter. I did some trimming, especially of the stalks sprawled all over the ground, but there will be no photo shoots of gardens at this point.

I have a favorite joke as a parent and as a person who had them. A couple was standing in front of their apartment building when a delivery van pulled up. GUILT was written on the side. The man remarked “oh, look honey, it’s a little something from our parents.”

I applied this principle to family members over the weekend. I got some wood split and some cleaning of the pig pen done with the help of grandsons. Then to reward everyone we enjoyed a nice roast from last year’s pigs.

While cleaning the kitchen at the end of the busy day, I found a tiny plastic pig in the sink drain. Life can be downright entertaining at times.

The field at Ghost Island Farm is covered in butternut squash. It will probably be in the farmstand any day now. Morning Glory Farm has its huge pumpkin display, as well as toy tractors for the youngsters.

I dug half of my sweet potato crop and was able to fill a milk crate. Most were supermarket sized, but some were still the size of carrots. They are still edible, but may be challenging to peel. If we had a longer season, they would have grown bigger. The plants were still green, but I wanted to get them before we got more rain.

My chicken flock is aging. Usually in Fall, when the light changes, I get fewer eggs until after the Winter solstice when production increased. I have to buy a dozen this week, which is irritating given that I’m feeling them for nothing.

There is much in the political news on which to comment. However, to me, the biggest event on Tuesday was the 100th birthday of Jimmy Carter. As the longest living American president, he will long be remembered as a good and decent man — the embodiment of an actual Christian.

As a result of the 1967 six-day war, Israel took possession of the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. President Carter had Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in talks, which ended in the Camp David Accords. Egypt regained control of the Senai and Israel was formally recognized by an Arab State. Since then, the two countries have enjoyed a 40-year peace.

Given the present situation in the Middle East, we could use another Camp David meeting.