Monday--

Oh my, what a night.  Thunderstorms ran through starting about 11pm and continued till nearly 1 am.  We woke to find all of the sunflowers toppled and the planters/pots on the ground.  Those were on the outside of the fence and got the full brunt of the wind which was the most savage I can remember here.  We restored some order by getting the sunflowers back upright and the planter stacks back in place.  We could smell the hyssop, sage, peppermint and other herbs bruised by the heavy rain and hail.  I cut sage, hyssop and feverfew which is in the dryer now and have been trimming broken stems and leaves from other plants a little at a time.  Also transplanted the two surviving lemon verbena and brought them inside under the grow light.  The weather people expect the storm to move east with the same level of violence.  Around the neighborhood we saw a lot of trash totes on their sides.  A fair number of people put them outside the fence so they can enjoy the full patio.  We keep ours inside so it doesn't get blown over or wind up rolling down the street.  A lot of tree limbs, one rain spout, and a kettle grill in thee widely separated places constituted most of the damage over our little area.  And I got a late start on reading news/blogs because the internet was down until about 10 am.

Tuesday--

Grocery shopping and more cleaning up in the gardens on the to-do list today.  I found a couple of dragon's egg cucumbers I had to work out from behind the trellis.  They were large enough to harvest so that took a bit of doing.  I found four Barese cucumbers hidden in the vines in addition to the one I have known about for a while.  None of they are ready yet.

I love Kunstler.  His latest post on Clusterfuck Nation hits at the reasons why I am not paying much attention to the Presidential clown auditions.  The nonsensical non-issues are taking up all of the time and energy while the serious issues aren't even under discussion.

Charles Hugh Smith at Oftwominds is another favorite blogger I read regularly.  Take a look at his "Billary Clinton and the Perfection of Consumerist Narcissism" for an interesting description of the intersection of politics, consumerism, and the commoditization of everything.