Friday.

Wet this morning.  We had some very heavy rain last night and the weather people say the rain will continue through the morning and, after a pause for the afternoon, will pick up again in the evening.  Nothing much going in the gardens.  I still have a few tomatoes and peppers ripening but nothing that should be harvested quite yet.  The plants I brought in are doing very nicely.  I put a lavender, 3 creeping thyme, and 3 plugs of gold leaf lemon thyme in the tower that has a nice place by the patio door.  Evidently they are getting enough light because they are thriving.  The jury is still out on the two scented geraniums.  They are still putting out some new growth and trying to bloom.  Some time soon I need to trim them back but not just yet.  I have another two lavender in individual pots under my grow light.  Both seem to be adjusting and I need to trim them back a bit.  The two rosemary are thriving.  I was surprised to find a couple of new side shoots coming up on my eucalyptus.  It may decide to survive after all.

Saturday.

If we had any doubts that fall has arrived (and we didn't) those doubts would be erased by this morning's temperatures--39F.  The daytime temperatures won't get out of the 60s over the next week. The weather report shows some snow a bit northwest of Chicago.  It is too warm for anything to stick but that, according to the weather person, is the earliest ever.  Update:  I have a four letter "s" word which is not snow on the tip of my tongue because we are getting light and wet snow at the moment.  Damn!!  I had planned to harvest all of the stevia but I don't think it will do all that well with the cold and snow.

David Kaiser posted an excellent dissection of President Obama's U.N. speech which most of our news media failed to cover beyond a mere mention.

Did you know that we ended slavery "voluntarily?"  I guess it all depends on how you define "voluntary."  If you include a vicious Civil War as part of the concept perhaps you can say we voluntarily ended the slavery.