August Begins.

8-3-19 VERMONT: It has been very dry here, the grass is brown in spots, the pond is down a couple of inches, all the wet spots have dried up, and I have been watering the new plantings. We did have two brief T-storms that give us a total of 0.25 inches, not much, but better than nothing. The weather has been hot, regular, old summer days, but the nights are cool.

We had pizza for dinner earlier this week, made in the new bread oven, by the neighbors across the street, Diana and Steve. Andy and Katie were there also. Everybody had a chance to roll the dough and apply the toppings. The oven temperature was 500°. They cooked in about five minutes. Domino’s might be in trouble.

The next night we had dinner with Dave and Gail at Elixir in White River Junction during one of those T-storms.

Anna and Gardner are here this weekend. He has been interviewing students for an internship, and she arrived by air yesterday. We picked her up in Lebanon and had dinner at Tuckerbox in WRJ. Tonight we are grilling here.

The barn is sick. The floor is uplifted in a couple of spots from frost heaves that have not subsided with the warm weather. It also has rotted floorboards, and there is rot in the platform under the floor. We discovered the rot when we took up a couple of the uplifted boards. Apparently, too much water under the barn can cause the pilings to get pushed up when it freezes, but the pilings don’t drop back down in place because dirt and debris fill the hole under the piling as the ice melts. It will need to be fixed and drainage pathways will need to be created. The entire barn above the floor is fine.

We have picked 6 quarts of blueberries with more to be picked. I noticed in town that they were selling for $5 a pint. Do the math.

I planted a bunch of vinca vines, annuals, in spots that the dogs dug up while looking for cool places to lie down, a practice I try to discourage. The vines were left over from the wedding, ornaments that never got used and had been set aside and forgotten. I saw them growing out from under a bush and thought, ‘what are those?’ and then remembered them. They are planted next to the foundation, so have an opportunity to survive the winter.

New blooms: blue clematis, gooseneck loosestrife, cup plant, more phlox.


The fox caught again at night near the small pond.

Flycatcher. There are several species that all look pretty much the same. This one might be the Least Flycatcher or the Willow Flycatcher, according to the bird ID apps.

Savanah Sparrow is very similar to the Song Sparrow.

Cup plant. Where the leaves meet at the stalk they form a cup that holds rain water. I don't think it does anything for the plant, but the bugs like it.

Catbird, definite ID.

I thought this clematis was a no show this year, but this late appearance is a nice surprise.

Common wood nymph, anyone?

White admiral on pasture milkweed. This patch of milkweed was mowed earlier in the summer, but has recovered and bloomed a bit later than the un-mowed milkweed.

Monarch displayed on swamp milkweed, A. incarnata, in the garden.