Mid-Summer Rant.

7-27-18 VERMONT: The morning we left NJ there was another 2 inches in the rain gauge for a four-day total of 4 inches which left everything well watered. Back here in VT, there was probably as much, but I think the rain gauge leaks a bit so there was only 1.5 inches when I looked the next day. Even with all this rain, things are still dry, the ground has sopped up all the moisture and some of the grass is still brown.

Today we have had T-storms teasing us. Earlier there was an hour of almost continuous thunder, no visible lightning, and about 30 seconds of rain, followed by sunshine. Now it’s dark with thunder again, and the weather radar shows a cell creeping this way. On the drive up, we had intense rain for the last thirty miles of I-91 that required driving slower than normal.

Counting both our trips to Québec and Short Hills, we drove the whole length of I-91 in Vermont, north and south. It is a great road. The whole interstate highway system is great and easily taken for granted. It’s named for President Eisenhower, and, I believe, it was his conception for the rapid movement of troops around the country, should that be necessary. It is essential for travel, trade, commerce, shipping and vacations.

Could it be done now if it didn’t exist? Probably not, because we have too much political polarization, and too many conflicting loyalties, agendas, agencies, concepts and constituencies.

In the fifties, when the interstate system was started, the country was much more unified in outlook, and good ideas were not rejected because a person from the wrong party suggested them. Gender and racial inequality were wide spread but not yet at the boiling point. The sixties with the Vietnam catastrophe, the civil rights conflicts and the sexual revolution were on the horizon.

Trust in the government has never recovered from that war, and the fractured and polarized constituencies now present in our society derived from those conflicts, and brought us to the present pathetic and disastrous regime.

That said, I have been busy with chores including weeding and staking flowers bent over by the rain. We had dinner with Shari and Dave last night and will have with Ken and Jane tomorrow.

New blooms: ligularia, monkshood, more phlox, Helenium, soapwort, Queen Anne’s lace.


Hummingbirds love beebalm, as do I.

This is a female, the males have a black collar with a red bowtie.

Monkshood is hard to capture, the color is purplish, like this, but it often comes out bluish. The reproductive parts, inside the hood, are also hard to show. This pic took a bit of editing to get it to look life-like.

Tiger lilies are usually more orange and have more black spots.

This hybrid daylily is a light pink, but the upper set of petals are different from the lower set in size, texture, color and shape.

Great spangled fritillary was a customer at the milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, along with dozens of other insects.

Fritillary and some black bees[?].

Leonard's skipper, also on the milkweed.