Thursday--

Hoping to get more done in the gardens today.  We should still have a high temp in the high 80s but with much lower humidity.  It is fairly cool right now.  I have spearmint and peppermint  ready to cut and dry.  The lemon bee balm is blooming nicely and it is very pretty.  We cooked up and froze another 5 lbs of tomato sauce yesterday.  And I got another two packages of the Gold Marie beans picked and in the freezer.

I am already tuckered out.  I tied the flower spikes of one of the sunflowers up so they weren't flopping so much in the wind.  I found the planter of lavender and marigold on the ground yesterday because the vibrations of the wind nudged it off its supports.  Nothing spilled, thank goodness.  I also had to spend some time trying to get some tomato vines back under some kind of control.  The last week of high temps kept me inside more than I like but the last thing I need is heat stroke.  I have to prune those vines some but I will do that in stages.  The weather last night had an interesting factoid: the last 11 days have been bone try in this south tip of Lake Michigan area taking what had been a very wet July down into the below average category.  I wish I had ignored the weather people yesterday and watered outside.  The cucumbers and the squash look much worse for the rain that didn't come.

This has been a season for wildfires--though, honestly, wildfires don't have a season any more.  Tomdispatch has a post today on fires burning in an area they shouldn't:  the North American temperate rainforest.  Mom commented that she can't remember so many fires burning at the same time.  I remarked that we have been saying that each year for the last three or four.

A look into the future?  The water wars are intensifying in the western U.S.  They died down in the southeast when rains finally filled up the reservoirs feeding Atlanta but will erupt again when the next serious drought comes.  Think I am kidding?  I found this a little while after I typed that previous bit.

I have two of this guy's books.  I would love to do more with them but current circumstances don't make that feasible.