A garden lesson for me. Two crops of lettuce. Mine at top (no thinning of plants); Susan's at bottom (much thinning of plants). Thin your seedlings!

Gus just had a nice drink of water. See the drop on his chin? He's such a sweetheart.

I've often admired his rosy nosetip. It's a great color--dark rusty rose.

This may be just as depressing as the Snark book but I have to at least skim it. Great title!

But first a word from our sponsor. How can you not love these singing pepperonis?

I read this very short book & it's ruined blogging for me I think.

It's made me hyper-self-conscious .... who the hell do I think I am? As my friend GR said to me when I first started blogging "Why, exactly, do you blog?" I'll never forget him squinting and eyeballing me up close while he asked this question. I don't know what I said in reply. Probably "because it amuses me." I may keep up the worm and weed blogs and go dormant on this one for a while. Other bloggers I follow (or used to follow) have done the same thing. Maybe blogging has a natural lifespan and mine is near the end? What do I know? nothing.

Saw him the other night at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA. James McMurtry.

P is for Pencils.

My father whittled. He also got obsessive from time to time about little projects. So does my sister, but that's another story. He made a few of these little pencils and I loved them so much I gave them to most if not all my cow-orkers (thanks again Kitt for that wonderful way to spell cow-orkers) who of course all loved them too. This made my dad so happy that he went on a mass-production spree. Here are some of the results.

Late harvest & one of the last salads of 09. But until the first frost I'll have lettuce, nasturtiums, fennel,chives, basil, beans, & sickly tomatoes.

Some of my sister's flowers.

Listen to the rain. First minute or so of this Slovenian group's performance. Speakers up, please.

"Toto's Africa," performed by Perpetuum Jazzile live at Vokal Xtravaganzza 2008 (October 2008). Thunderstorm simulation effects inspired by Kearnsey College choir (South Africa).

New category: New Yorker cartoons I don't get.

Beans and Autumn Joy sedum.

I did almost every single thing wrong in growing these beans. But I learned a lot and the deer are only nibbling at the edges. Next year's goal: make my vegetable garden neater. It looks fine for a 5-year-old, not so fine for an adult.

Growing in a mossy area under a pin oak.

These mushrooms looked like potatoes buried in my lawn. Nice deep black centers.

My jeans quilt is growing larger. It's going to be heavy, man. Literally heavy.

I'm taking an odd pride in how messy it looks. It's lumpy, bumpy, and nubby.

More fungi.

Except for the top one these mushrooms came up in one of my compost piles. The big ugly monster at the top is from the park next door.

This delicate vine is covering the netting around my vegetable garden. Hummingbirds love it. Cardinal creeper (Ipomoea horsfalliae).

So many purple perennials. The far left is rosemary but I'm not sure if the others are all the same.

My two volunteer pumpkins are turning orange.

New lettuce. If we get more sun it might grow enough for a salad or two.

My sweet potato vine survived two deer maulings but produced this single tuber. Yes, single.

Do I eat it or save it until next year to make new "starts" in the spring? I'm not a sweet potato fan.

Very odd fungi. Hard as aged leather, not soft and mushy like most mushrooms.

My faithful frog. He's been living (alone?) in my tiny pond all summer.

Adorable old match book covers from Mrs. K's Toll House, the older on the right. I ate there just 2 months ago.

Late beans. Poor things. I planted them in such a bad place in late summer but still they produced these nice flowers.

Lesson learned this summer. Look UNDER tomatoes to decide when they're ripe. Tops alone can be deceiving.

Are we getting tired of tomatoes yet? Not quite, but almost.

Pumpkin?

It's one of four volunteer melons in my garden. I had to pick this one before its time (I accidentally trampled the vine). One other is definitely a cantaloupe and the final two are probably also pumpkins. I hoped they were watermelons: they're very green. But I think pumpkins don't turn orange until later in the season. To be continued.

Pale but pretty. Not an outstanding tomato but OK.

Fungi near a compost pile.

Lavender (center) looks dead. I can't grow lavender; I always do the wrong thing. I may cut this to the ground & see what happens in the spring.

Deer proof. From my neighbor's front yard. What is it?

I don't know WHAT to make of this. (9/3: Black walnut seed. Squirreled away by a squirrel maybe?)

It's a nest in a big evergreen shrub in my yard, about eye-level. In the nest is a big green "egg." I call it an egg b/c that's what it looks like but it's huge. Looks more like a smooth oversized black walnut. But there are no black walnuts nearby--that I know of. I don't want to touch the green thing in case it's actually an egg. Somehow I doubt it. To be continued.

I can't remember what this is but I'm going to prune it hard when it's time to prune. Spring, I guess.

It's 3+ feet wide and 5-6 feet tall. Deer don't touch it. Sweet shrub, but it's overgrowing too many other plants. And isn't pruning good/necessary for some shrubs?

Watermelon. About 1/3 of my gardening space was taken over by 2 watermelon plants that I didn't plant.

The deer have nibbled off all the foliage that pokes its head out of the netting.