Sunday--

It is supposed to be much cooler today.  We had waves of monsoonal rain last night with lots of lightening and thunder.  At one point the streets on either side of the house had been turned into fast running rivers.  I will check everything in the gardens after the sun comes up.

Garden update:  I took a walk out and promptly drowned about two dozen Japanese beetles.  It looks like they are trying to mount a new offensive.  It is cloudy and muggy so I think I will defer any real work outside till tomorrow when it should be dry and cooler yet.  Making a to-do list.

Monday--

Been busy in the gardens this morning.  Spread some fertilizer--especially in the cucumber and tomato beds.  Watered the sunflowers and found beans growing on the Gold Marie vines.  Nothing yet on the Sunset runner beans.  Drowned another score of Japanese beetles.  Then I tackled the tomato vines which are going into their jungle phase.  The monsoonal rains and heat have kept me out of the patio for a bit.  I found three Cupcake squash growing to a nice size.  The Moldavian balm has flowers now and I think the bee balm lemon is close behind.  I think I told you all that the hyssop is throwing up its flower spikes and my foxglove is blooming again on secondary spikes.

Tuesday--

Planning to tackle the tomatoes again today.  I got the most important ones done yesterday--the ones that were interfering with the gate.  Now I need to get others done.  I trim them so I can more easily see what is developing.  It should be cool and sunny today which will be very nice.  I turned off the air as I usually do when the outside temps drop below 85F.  I spent some time watering all of the beds in the evening and talking to a neighbor who is just starting gardening on his patio patch.  Most of his plants were started late so they aren't as far along as mine.  Since his fence encloses a small patch of bare earth he didn't think about doing containers.

Does anyone feel that somehow, socially and politically, we have gone off the rails?  Who would have thunk it--The Donald leading the Republican polls and retired General Wesley Clark advocating internal concentration camps for Americans who might become radicalized.  But wonder if Clark's sickening suggestion is any worse that the conditions outlined in this Alternet report on employers use of technology to create other kinds of concentration camps for their employees--for the sake of "efficiency" and "team building" and what ever innocuous sounding good they can think of.

Gaius Publius has a long but very interesting article on the factors contributing to the drought in the West.  Many years ago I knew a history professor who studied water law in the west who said that the allocations of water from the Colorado River had been made on the basis of faulty data.  Exactly what Gaius said--they apportioned the water based on the 30 wettest years in the history of the river basin. They knew that in the 1970s and did nothing to change it.

So Kerry is "disturbed."  Why?  Did he think that simply signing the nuclear agreement with Iran would suddenly make them love us?  I can't imagine him being so naive but then so much of American foreign policy (as if a pinball bouncing around has a policy) seems to fit that description.

Another attempt to raid the Social Security "piggy bank."