16 September

Another sunny day with mild temps. I got out and watered everything and filled the bird feeder. The birds are back and feeding like crazy. We hadn't seen many at all since we have had this streak of high 80s and 90s. I might get back out and dead head some more plants. I am also thinking about what needs to be taken out and which pots need to be emptied. The biggest containers I never empty and for the last couple of years I haven't even cleared the dead plants out. The remains provide a good ground cover which prevents the rain from splattering soil out of the pots. The smaller ones I empty and pile up under the table/planting bench for the winter season. Last week I cleared out the shed and threw away a whole lot of pots that came with the larger transplants of the past few years. I have plenty of more sturdy and attractive pots left.

I still have a bit of a mental stutter when I go to the stores and see empty shelves. While shopping we went into the pet department and saw almost NO Friskies canned cat food. The shelves were bare. And this isn't the first time for that brand and has happened with other brands as well. I won't even go into the gaps in the cleaning, paper goods and other aisles. It isn't nearly as bad but I did see a couple of signs limiting the number of certain item people can purchase at a given time. Our little dairy was out of string cheese and lard. Their suppliers are short on supplies. I remember when you would never see a gap on the shelves. The first time I remember seeing that kind of thing was about four years ago at a CVS drug store waiting for Mom to see the RN on duty. The shelves opposite the waiting area had some gaps and a lot of places where only three or four items were displayed. That was before the pandemic and its consequences. I did two stints as an inventory counter--the last about 20 years ago--and I almost never saw bare shelves. Most were so packed it made counting accurately difficult. How times have changed.