Winding Down the Garden Some More

Clippings from the garden

Several days ago, I wrote that I was starting to wind down the 2026 garden. There were some more light frosts after that initial one. I did not cover the tomatoes, which mostly came through. The basil, however, pretty much bit the dust. (Hmm, can plants rooted in the dirt bite the dust? Well, sure, if you think of the idiom itself; the basil is done for the year. But given that vegetables and herbs bite the dust so they can grow all growing season long, it makes me think I need a better way to express the end of the season!) And the flowers and miscellaneous "stuff" (no other word fits it) growing at the rear of the garden are also looking done done done for the season.

In response, I have been wading into the garden the last two afternoons to start cutting down and pulling up the weeds, the flower stalks, the everything. Well, not the milkweed; it is tough. I can cut it down substantially, but it will take a shovel to uproot it. Once everything else is out of the way, the remaining milkweed stubs will be obvious. 

Making progress 

I will wade back in this afternoon and, I hope, bring the bulk of the remaining things down down down. We have had a string of bright autumn days with sunshine and warm temperatures, so while I definitely am not making hay while the sun shines, I am clearing the garden while the weather holds. I am salvaging the few small zinnias that are still blooming and a small vase of them is brightening our table. There was even a cosmos or two for the gathering. 

I am not trying to overthink the question of next year's gardens. Friends who garden, one aggressively, one more like my style (casual at best), have been sharing some of their thoughts in recent letters. We all are kicking around ideas. My aunt Gail, who gardens all year long given her location (southern southern California) has recently started yet another round of sweet peas and turnips (and probably other things as well; those are just the two that stick in my mind). But even she is noticing effects of climate change on her gardening, which at this location has been for some 50+ years. Not just in the storms sweeping the California coast (she lives eight miles inland) but in her plants blooming or withering out of season. So while she continues to garden fiercely, she admits that she is not sure how things will turn out. 

As I cut and cleaned yesterday, I came across our Mayo star. You can see it is the above photo as I worked towards it. It was made to be staked in a flower bed or garden. Warren and I bought this early on when we started at Mayo. There was a downtown street fair/arts festival right by the Clinic (and the Clinic dominates downtown Rochester) on one of our very early visits and we bought it with love and hope for the future. 11 years later, we still have love and hope.

And the star.

Winding Down the Garden

From the garden: basil, tomatoes, and peppers

 

Our first frost came early Sunday morning. I had been watching the alerts from Saturday morning forward, so I intentionally spent an hour outside Saturday afternoon picking every last pepper and then pulling this year's pepper plants up to go into the yard waste. 

That hour in the garden revealed in no uncertain terms just how much I have neglected the garden this year. The chickweed was everywhere, and that is not me being careless with my words. It truly was everywhere. As I uprooted the peppers, I pulled lots of it too. 

There is still a lot of chickweed plants thriving. A. Lot. Frankly, the chickweed looks better than the pretty beat up looking flowers in the back of the garden. Somewhere in that mess are the remains of one last head of cabbage that got chewed up by bugs before I picked it. And to add insult to injury, for the first time ever, the marigold border is ragged with many marigolds dead. Warren has always taken care of the marigolds, so their neglect speaks to how overloaded his schedule is too. 

Despite the wreckage, I brought in enough peppers to store four quarts of cut peppers in the freezer, besides the additional cup or so for a dish I made last night for supper. 

I clipped back the tomatoes some more, gauging what I may still pick. A few of the larger ones; a few dozen of the cherries. If the weather holds to be fairly mild, if the sun shines, that is. 

I made the decision several weeks ago to let the basil go to flower for the bees. All the same, I handpicked a large bowl of leaves and made one last batch of pesto for 2026. (No surprise, the chickweed surrounded the basil patch, although for the most part the basil easily topped the chickweed in height.)

Sigh.

I am truly on the fence as to how much gardening to do next year. On the one hand, I love fresh tomatoes and peppers. The flowers (cosmos, zinnias, others) cheer me and make our pollinators and birds happy. On the other hand, I need more energy—physical and emotional—to make it viable. 

Sigh.

In another week or so, I will take both a hoe and a rake to the chickweed and remove as much as possible. Chickweed seeds rapaciously, so you cannot just till it under. But we can and will put compost on the garden and till that under afterwards.

As Saturday wore on, the air chilled even more. Warren, an hour away for the dress rehearsal and concert in Mansfield, called to see if I had seen the moon: a silvery waxing half moon. Yes, I replied, adding that I had just put sheets over the tomatoes given the frost warnings. 

Ready for the frost

As always, once the garden is officially down for the year, not only in production but also in cleanup, I will think about what 2027 might hold. I feel I can do better and that is something I need to seriously contemplate. The oncoming winter is a perfect time to look back at the 2026 garden and wonder what I might try in 2027.

And the moon can look over my shoulder all winter long to keep me on track.

Saturday night's moon

Watching the Groceries: Wrapping Up the Third Quarter of 2026!

 

With the start of the fourth and final quarter of 2026 just begun (how did that happen?), I have looked at our grocery spending to see where we stand for the year.

And the short version is? Better than I had hoped, given the prices of food and some of the splurges I made. I keep a running spreadsheet on my computer and will sometimes make editorial comments as I go, some of which make me laugh and some of which make me wince when hit the end of a quarter.

So numbers first. In the third quarter, we spent $628.19 on groceries, which for purposes of tracking means food items and common household items such as detergent and toilet paper. Of that, only $23.33 was spent on household items, just under 4% The monthly average for third quarter? $209.40. 

Okay.

Year to date, we have spent $1854.61, which comes to an average of $206.07. 

I can live with that!

Looking back at my second quarter post, I see that I called attention to the price of milk, which was on an upward trend. Three months later, the price of milk has come down substantially. (Good, because I love milk.) Probably the biggest "splurge" was when we were recently at Mayo Clinic I picked out some items at Trader Joe's (and note that the one in Rochester, MN is the only TJ we shop at, period) to help shove more complex carbohydrates into my diet as my doctor and I work with my diabetes. So yes to the wild rice and the penne pasta made from brown rice. 

We will have a large stock-up at Aldi in the coming days as we have been eating out of our pantry and garden much of the summer. I know what we don't need: we have A LOT of frozen chicken in our freezer from some walloping sales at Kroger. But I will grab my Aldi list and check on our supplies of staples so I can fill in the gaps.

There has been a lot (A. Lot.) going on in this household, much of it good, much of it complex (even the good stuff), and a chunk of it in the "just get through it" category. My health is stable, but there are some issues that my personal physician and I are watching. Will that impact our grocery spending? Maybe. Who knows?

It is what it is.

There is one very recent development that takes the first place blue ribbon (our county fair just ended) and has nothing to do with grocery spending, but is too good not to share. Last Friday, Warren's daughter Elizabeth gave birth to Gideon, the first child for Elizabeth and her husband Justin, and the first grandchild for both immediate sides. 

Yes, Warren is over the moon. (As we all are.) 

Let's see how we finish 2026 on the grocery front! 

Autumn Arrives in the Garden

By my own admission back in August, I have not paid much attention to gardening this summer. My energy and attention have been spent on other fronts.

It shows.

The weather while we were recently out of town at Mayo didn't help. It rained a lot—not the torrential rains that hit other parts of Ohio and the Midwest, but enough. Ripe tomatoes split open, others dropped to the mud. The large pots on our deck (which we have spent too little time on this season) are full of tall grasses, courtesy (I assume) of the birds; those grasses are outperforming any of the flowers we planted. The flower seeds I sowed (casually) in the back of the garden came up and have spent weeks shoving one another out of the way. It is hard for zinnias to look beat to pieces, but mine do.

This week, which didn't start until we got a little bit of sleep after arriving home at about 1:15 a.m. Tuesday morning, has been full of all kinds of "must tend to" things—catching up on mail, catching up on email, dropping in to see my dad, a series of appointments and other obligations. But I hit a lull, a space, on Friday afternoon where I took clippers in hand, along with a large bowl, lugged the yard waste container around to the garden, and set to work.

Better late than never?

I clipped a lot of tomato vines, both those done with whatever they had produced or those sending out late blooms that clearly would not mature. I picked up and tossed the rotted, split open tomatoes into the container, some of them splitting even further as they landed. I was grateful to see that there are still a few (very few, but a few!) of the larger tomatoes (Best Girls, maybe) still green on the vine, so I hope yet for a few big tomatoes this season. ("Big" compared to cherry tomatoes, which are still coming on, small compared to beefsteak varieties.) I picked peppers—a peck of them? If not literally, certainly figuratively. Those will head to the freezer for meals all winter.

And then I sat down and took a long break. Blue sky, thin wispy clouds. Crowded flowers. Bees in and out. 

Butterflies in and out.

In the past, I have referred to this time as "bee therapy." As I travel through Buddhist realms each day with Thich Nhat Hanh, with his focus on mindful breathing, I wonder if I shouldn't call it bee meditation?

Whatever I call it, I need it. 

I'm penning this out Friday night, to type out Saturday morning. We have an almost full moon and the thin clouds are illuminated from behind. The daylight has changed as the sun moves south. My favorite season is on our doorstep. In a few more weeks, the changing times will bring the 2026 garden to a close.

And that is enough for now.

Eating Out

Warren and I eat out a lot.

A. Lot.

How much is a lot? 

Heck, some weeks anywhere from 8-14 times.

Lunches and suppers only. Never breakfast.

Before you clutch your chest and exclaim, "But April said they live frugally!" or "April told me they never eat out," take a deep breath.

Here is our favorite lunch spot:

That's Cafe Hyer there. It faces our street, is in the shade in the morning, and in front of it is the now blooming sedum bed, which fills up with bees during the day. Not just any old dining establishment will serve you lunch and bee therapy at the same time. On occasion, we are out there eating when our mail carrier comes with our mail. 

For our evening repast ("supper" to me, "dinner" to others), we head to our very favorite diner, the W & A Restaurant. This spot, conveniently located on our back deck, is in the shade by late afternoon. There we can see clouds scud by, listen to children playing, watch birds on the ground, in the trees, and in the sky, and wave at neighbors (well, we do that out front too). On occasion, Warren, who typically sits facing south towards our garden, will say, "A hummingbird!" and I will turn and catch a glimpse of one. I typically sit facing east, gazing at our backyard. 

Meals at W & A Restaurant tend to be a little more classy. We usually have a tablecloth over the table. Instead of just throwing together a sandwich and grabbing some chips for lunch at Cafe Hyer, we typically have serving plates and bowls. We both are more at ease using breakable tableware and glasses. In comparison, at Cafe Hyer, we tend towards plastic as the serving table is much smaller and the possibility of something being knocked over is a bit higher; neither of us want to clean up shattered glass.

Warren and I try hard to have all of our meals together. Sharing meals carves out time in which it is just us, not us and Warren's class, or us and my tasks for my dad, or us and Warren's booming business. 

So there you have it: we dine out a lot. Especially this time of year. And as I finish typing these words, I see it is just about noon here. Cafe Hyer awaits! 

On the Far Side of Summer

We are in the last few weeks of summer and I am conscious of the changes. Our weather has (most blessedly) started cooling. Yes, we have had a lot of rain, but our community did not get the brutal rains, tornadoes, and flooding that Indiana, parts of Ohio (including Columbus 25 miles south of us), and Kentucky did.

The days are getting shorter. I don't notice the change from day to day, but I can tell it week by week. As I pen this out Tuesday night, it is already dark at 8:40 p.m. and probably was dark earlier than that. I just did not notice. 

No surprise given the time of year, there has been a lot going on on the garden. Tomatoes tomatoes tomatoes. In an experiment for the winter, I slow-roasted trays of tomato slices (brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with herbs and kosher salt), packing them in containers to freeze. My hope is to be able to pull them out this winter, thaw them slightly, and put them on a homemade pizza.

There are lots and lots of peppers to do...something with.

Last week Warren and I did a second basil cutting. We had done one back in mid-July that I turned into pesto: some for our freezer, some for friends. Some five weeks after the first, let's just say there was a lot of basil. I grow several types (and pay no attention to what types I plant) so the cut collection was wildly varied in size of leaves, texture of leaves, and color of leaves. Several has large curly leaves, like a garden fairy had gotten to them with a crimping iron. I made more pesto with about half of it on Sunday. On Tuesday, I washed and de-stemmed and dried the rest of it, then very slow-baked the individual leaves for a fresh jar of dried basil for cooking.

Crumbling the dried leaves was an olfactory gift.

As for the pesto, I had in mind where it would head. The next door neighbors on the south had been away on an extended trip and were coming home Monday night. They both love my pesto. I was cat-sitting for them while they were away, so on the last evening of my cat duties, I slipped a small container of fresh pesto in their fridge to welcome them back.

A larger container went to our next door neighbors on the north side, Adam and Maura and their girls, Alice and Margaux. Our two households share lots back and forth—baked goods, vegetables, pesto, fruit, books, laughter, and more. Alice and Margaux, Alice just shy of 11 and Margaux 7, are already skilled bakers and had brought over on Saturday some to-die-for homemade cinnamon rolls. Later on Sunday Margaux and Maura delivered some sweet corn as both homes look for farm stands with it this time of year. 

When I carried the container of pesto next door, Margaux, playing outside with another neighbor, jumped up. "Is that the pesto?!" She is a huge pesto fan.

Yep, that's the pesto. I hope she shared.

There was something else I did with the pesto this Sunday—something long overdue. I shared two small containers with our neighbors who live directly across the street from us. We are all on a smiling and waving basis (and remember, I have lived in this house now for almost 18 years) but seeing Joan out that morning made me walk across and ask if they would like some pesto.

Joan had heard of pesto, but had not had it before. We talked about it, and Ed, her husband, joined us. (Warren was busy loading steel, so he was not in on the conversation.) We talked about their house, the torrential rains several days ago and the water damage, about cooking (Ed is the head cook of the two), about this and that. They told me what they were cooking that night; it sounded like a perfect match with the pesto. Then Joan said "I'd love to share what we're making with you and Warren. Would that be okay?"

Oh yes.

So mid-afternoon I walked the pesto over to their house. In the early evening, Joan knocked on our door with two servings of their main dish: roasted chicken breast/tomato/spinach/onion. We had already husked some of the sweet corn that had arrived earlier in the afternoon. The sweet corn delivery had also included two freshly baked blueberry muffins (I'm telling you: the girls bake a lot!), so we had quite a feast, finishing the dessert muffins on our front porch. Ed and Joan were arriving home from walking their dog, and we all four waved and called out appreciation for the shared food.

As we savored the muffins, I started laughing.

"This meal was entirely free. How's that for being frugal?"

The meal was wonderful.The sense of community, of connecting with others, was the special sauce, the deluxe icing, that made it even better.

A Mid-August Garden Report

Let's face it: I have not been a good gardener this year.

At all.

I have occasionally weeded the garden. Very occasionally. During the heat dome and the heat waves (hot but not a heat dome), I kinda sorta kept it watered. In fact, my dear husband has been more attentive to watering and weeding it than I have this year. (And his pet project is deadheading the marigolds that march around the border, so Warren gets credit for that too.)

But, as I have noted more than once over the years, plants tend to know what to do, regardless of my actions. 

There are tomatoes:

And peppers:

There have been so many peppers so far that, as I did last summer and the summer before, I made pepper-onion relish; hot packed so we can enjoy it through the winter. There was one casualty during the hot bath (I couldn't figure out why there was suddenly bits of chopped onions and peppers in the bath: had a lid come off? Nope!):

but everything else came through with flying colors:

The beautiful cabbage head that leads off this post? Coleslaw for supper tonight. (And for several more days to come, of course.) Not unlike last summer and fall, when I found great satisfaction and focus in performing little things, concentrating on making the slaw today was most satisfying. 

There are more (many, many more) tomatoes to come, and still quite a few peppers as well. The basil is about ready for a second picking; I may make more pesto or I may dry the leave for cooking herbs or both. After that, I will let the basil go to flower so the bees can enjoy the fragrant bed. Besides, given my trying to get my internal rhythms reset, I could totally use some bee therapy.

Some bee therapy? Who am I kidding? I could use a lot (A. Lot.) of bee therapy. It is interesting just now, as I looked back to catch the link to last year's post, that last October I was—guess what?—dealing with some of the very same issues that I am struggling with now. I'll just leave that on the table for now. 

I am grateful that the garden decided to do what it does best: grow. And produce food for our table (and other tables too) and food for my soul. If that's not a win, I don't know what is. 

On A Quest

My next door neighbor Mary texted me that per a Yale study (done over a decade ago, I might note), regular readers live an average of 23 months longer than their cohorts. I replied: "So given that I typically read 200+ books a year, I'm in good shape, right?" 

I just finished The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. It is not for the light of heart. It is a dense, well-crafted novel with the Columbine school massacre being a core event in the life of the narrator. Just saying. But from it, I plucked this quote:

At the door, Dr. Patel wished me good luck with my students. "It's a curious things about quests, isn't it, Mr. Quirk?" she said. "The seeker embarks on a journey to find what he wants and discovers, along the way, what he needs."

That quote about the the concept of a quest has stayed with me. It brings to mind much earlier reflections on pilgrimages. And it stirred me to pen this out (pen and paper!) last night.

Per Blogger, this is my 1001st post. (Dang.) I last wrote in July, particularly about my father's hospitalization and how I felt I was in a box. In truth, I am still struggling to get a rhythm back into my daily life. My sleep is erratic. My focus is erratic. My handling of tasks—what to do when in what order—is erratic. I get frustrated internally far too easily far too often. 

 You get the idea. 

So that is my quest: getting my daily rhythm adjusted to my needs. 

There are some pieces I have put in place, some of them predating July. While my walking continues to be impaired (and will be permanently), I try (and usually succeed) to walk daily. I have stopped measuring how far I walk but am still noting how long I walk.

So that is one: walking almost daily.

A few months ago, thanks to my friend Tani, I have added a tai chi practice to my daily routine. I follow Don Fiore on YouTube. While I started with a longer clip of his, some 16+ minutes, I have been using a much shorter clip (8 minutes) since the hospitalization episode. I have committed the shorter one to memory, and even in a crowded day, can find a place to tuck it in. 

So that is two: tai chi daily.

I listen to "Jupiter" (from The Planets by Gustav Holst) daily. I am particular; I only listen to a 2014 performance by the NDR Radiophilharmonie under the baton of Andrew Manze. I not only listen but also watch and confess I have watched it so many times that I can follow Manze's cues. But the point is I listen to it not just as background music but for the focus. I don't even read for those 8 minutes.

So that is three: "Jupiter" daily.

 A few weeks ago, I started lifting weights DAILY. We're not talking gym membership and hoisting barbells, folks. We have some 3 pound dumbbells that I do a set of reps with. I just added some reps with the 5 pound weights. (We have a pair of 10-pounders, but trust me, they are not even on my horizon yet.) It is a totally different focus from walking and tai chi.

So that is four: weights daily. 

And within the last few days, totally unexpectedly, I have added a daily dose of meditative talk by Thich Nhat Hanh, a renown Buddhist monk and peace activist. Hanh died in 2022. I had read some of his books before his death, so when his name popped up in my YouTube feed, I clicked on it.

And was immediately drawn in.

The episodes, put out by the Plum Village Monastery (which Hanh helped cofound in the 1980s), are small, only 5 to 6 minutes each. Each is just one small teaching, one little gem of thought. I have only seen three, but that is already enough for me to understand Hanh's Vietnamese-accented English better.

So that is five: daily Buddhist moments.

Anne Lamott, who writes often about issues of belief and faith, talked about a friend who considered themselves "Jew-ish," as in not fully immersed in the religion but believing in elements of it. I think she also talked about Jew-ish friends who also were drawn to Buddhism in the same way; she may have called them (or they called themselves) "Bu-Jews." I can see that combination working for me: continuing to follow the Jewish imperative to mend the broken world and finding solace and focus in the Buddhist teachings.

There has been a lot (A. Lot.) of things going on in my sphere—watching out for my aging father and his needs (and while he is doing great for 93, the decline is more obvious); keeping his sister, my beloved Aunt Gail, informed; boosting (along with others) a very close friend who has hit a hard brick wall not of her own making; herding the Justice Bus volunteers; Warren's extremely busy schedule between his booming business and his college teaching starting up in a few more weeks. To name a few. I miss my children and their families. I am not keeping up on the household, on the garden, on...let's face it. On much of anything. 

But tai chi, walking, weights, "Jupiter," and Thich Nhat Hanh: those are a start. Those may be the things I need to find on this quest for myself. 

Another Garden Update

The first one: not great.

It is hot. We are entering (maybe in already?) another heat dome—not as vicious as the one at the end of June (at least not yet) but still nothing to mess with. And, of course, I hate heat. 

BUT to keep my mind off the heat, here is a garden update!

The first cherry tomato, at the top of this post, was an ehhhh. Ripe but not ripe, A little hard. A little lacking. But a few days later the first Early Girl came in (which I ate promptly) and now I have THREE of them waiting to be enjoyed! (And remember, I am the only person in this household who eats fresh tomatoes.)

Yum! 

On the other side of the garden, the basil, after its weedy start, was ready to pick. So yesterday morning, while it was still cool, I got out there with shears and cut most of it, filling a huge pan. I stuffed it into a garbage bag, put it in the refrigerator, and this morning I turned my attention to making the first pesto of 2026.

Just waiting for me to dive in

This photo shows my work area before the pesto making commenced. Nice, neat, clean. The hammer? That's to smash (okay, hit firmly) garlic so I can get the skin off and throw it into the food processor. No wasting time with a garlic press for me! 

Ready to go!

I did not take a photo of my work area after I finished the pesto, but trust me, it was not nice, it was not neat.

But there IS pesto!

As I told Warren and then shared with my friend David, it was harder making the pesto this year. Age does take its toll, and my "real" age is more than the 70 years shown on my birth certificate. But I made it to the other side. Tonight I will put the pesto into containers, carry some to our neighbors on both sides, and then sit down and smile.

And maybe, just maybe, enjoy one of those tomatoes! 

Pesto! 

An Early July Garden Update

The tiger lilies are just starting to bloom

Well, let's just say the news is mixed. Not bad, mind you, just mixed.

Like many of the midwestern and eastern states, we had a massive heat dome last week. High temperatures here (in the mid to upper 90s) and higher heat index numbers—102, 105—those kind of numbers. For the garden, that meant watering it at, oh, 6:00 a.m. or so before the heat got too intense to be outside. 

Despite that battering, the garden came through. My biggest surprise is that the lettuce bed did not throw its hands up and surrender. That day is coming, but for now this household and our neighbors are still eating fresh lettuce.

From an earlier picking

We've had a few peppers already too.

The first tomato is almost ready to pick. (The rest are lagging behind.)

And the zinnias are starting to open up too. 

Trust me, there are more. 

The biggest obstacle with the garden this year? Yours truly. While never a strong weeder, this year I am downright pathetic. The basil has suffered the most from the neglect, although I did get enough weeded out that the basil pushed up and over the weeds. They have done well enough that I can probably make the first batch of pesto.

And an update on that earlier update: the basil seeds that I bought and sowed? Warren did not know I had sowed a small bed, saw pigweed coming up in that area, and hacked the "new" basil bed up to get rid of the weeds. Those seeds never had a chance. 

I almost hesitate to write this, but might as well throw it out here: gardening this year from my viewpoint has been difficult. Not just the weeding: everything. I have even had the heretical thought that next year, we have even a smaller garden. Fewer tomatoes (this year there were 5), fewer peppers (this year there were 14). I know, I know. It is only July. And some (many?) of the physical challenges I am dealing with this spring/summer may improve or even resolve.

Time will tell, both for me and for this year's garden. Here's to more tomatoes! 

Watching the Groceries: Halfway Through 2026!

Really? We are already halfway through the year? Yeah, right. That's like telling me my youngest son, Sam, is 36 years old.

Oh, wait. Sam did just turn 36! And yes, 2026 is halfway over!

So where is our household on grocery spending for not only the second quarter but also the first half of the year?

Better than I dared hope. 

As I have often written, "groceries" means food and common household items such as toilet paper, tissues, and cleaning supplies. "Groceries" does not mean eating out, which for us, unless we are on the road, tends to be very minimal. (How minimal? Maybe three to four times in any given quarter.) 

Like so many of us, I continue to watch many prices rise. In April, when I was totaling up our first quarter spending, I noted that milk was $3.19, a new high. Not anymore. A gallon of milk yesterday at Kroger? $3.29.  Now, I like milk. A. Lot. I watch for sales, of course, but the reality is I will continue to buy milk. It is a small luxury I am grateful I can afford. 

Another kink in the shopping, and it will take another quarter to figure our what, if any, impact there may be, is the re-emergence of diabetes. Things have changed since I wrote about this at the end of March. I have a new family physician who I just had my first appointment with yesterday and she and Warren and I had a long discussion about where my A1C is (too high and barely down from March), what changes I am willing to make to my diet and lifestyle on my own (the diet is the bigger issue), and how she would like to see if and how much I can bring that troublesome A1C down before I see her again in late September. My doctor wants me to focus on eating more complex carbohydrates, starting with something as simple as brown rice. (But we are finishing the white rice first. Just saying.) So there's that.

Okay. What did the second quarter hold?

From April to June, we spent $561.63 on groceries. $32.03, or just about 6%, of that was on household items, ranging from toilet paper to (my favorite) 5¢ on Dawn dish soap at CVS. The rest was on food. May was our most expensive month, as we had a big stock-up at Aldi that came in at about $98.00 and then a later trip that I thought would be small, but still topped out at over $65.00. In June, we had one Aldi stock-up that came in around $105.00, but that was the only one. Our second quarter spending averaged out to $177.21 a month. 

Combined grocery spending for the first half of 2026? $1226.42, or a monthly average of $204.40. 

Not bad. not bad at all.

We have been making a concerted effort to eat out of our pantry and freezer. The good news of that? We don't have to buy much. The downside? At some point, we will be restocking both the freezer and the pantry. I am watching the grocery ads for sales on chicken (our primary meat in this household); I'm hoping for a "Buy One Get Two" sale, but have not seen any of those recently. And both of us continue to be very, very vigilant about food waste. So much so that when the occasion presented itself recently, I trash picked a gorgeous apple (with one medium bruise) out of our shared compost, brought it in, washed it off, cut off the bruise, and enjoyed every single bite with Warren. Just saying.

So that's where we are at the half. The 4th of July is upon us; of course, there's a concert that night. We have just come under a heat dome (and I really, really hate heat) but it is supposed to break before the 4th. I certainly hope so.

On to the third quarter!

A long-ago Sam celebrating the 4th! 

Community

Sammie 

When my longtime friend Katrina was here earlier this month, she commented more than once on the sense of community she felt in Delaware. Things like the older neighborhood homes with spacious front porches where people called out hellos from their swings and chairs. People walking by smiling and saying hello. The walkability.  The community-focused events we took her to: the 3rd birthday of our remarkable TreeHouse program (Young Adult Transitional Housing) created by our amazing, groundbreaking United Way of Delaware County, the June Justice Bus—these gave her a closer look at how some of us ("us" being both agencies and their staffers as well as volunteers) work to strengthen this community.

Community.

Another friend, Maike, made a similar comment about community in a recent letter. She marveled that an across-the-street neighbor walked over and offered to share tomato plants with us and our neighbors (Ryan grows his own from seed). I took one solely for its name: Pink Bumblebee. (I mean, how could I not take that one?) Maike wrote that she thinks she is the only person in their suburban neighborhood that even has a vegetable garden, calling herself an outlier. In replying, after offering sympathy for her situation, I noted that there are multiple vegetable gardens just in our block, let alone in our city, whether we are talking a plot like ours, raised beds like our neighbors on either side, or even a well-tended tomato in a pot on a front porch.

Community.

Yesterday, I took a morning walk while Warren worked, and the sense of community played out fully. Dog walkers nodding and smiling as we passed. A man clipping a shrub who waved as I walked by. About a block and a half from our home, I stopped to talk to Joe, who I've known for years and who recently turned his lightly sloped front yard from grass into all native plantings, inspired by Doug Tallamy and the Homegrown National Park movement and committing to taking the leap when he realized that Andrews House has a native plant garden on its sloped front yard. The sprinkler was going, the sky was blue, the sun was out, and we both celebrated the freshness of the morning, the joy of being retired, and his hopes for his native plants yard. "Tell Warren I said hi," Joe said as I walked away, waving goodbye. Closer to our home, Andy and another neighbor were on Andy's front porch; they both waved and called hello.

Community.

We spent a large part of yesterday afternoon exploring a nearby community, Newark, its downtown as well as the Earthworks nearby. We ate locally (Moe's BBQ; superb), I spent time reading with Mark Twain, toured the Earthworks (a UNESCO site), and, on the way home, stopped at a Whit's (a frozen custard chain) in a small town on our route, for a treat. (June 21 is a special day for us, and not because of the solstice.) A little boy, maybe 5, maybe slightly older, was there with his grandparents—running in and out (they were eating outside as were we), grabbing napkins, saying hello to everyone. They departed and three bikers (motorcycles, not bicycles) came out with their orders and reveled in the day, the friendships, and the treats. As we came back into town, we made a quick stop at Aldi for ONE item that I needed. Walking in (quickly), I passed a friend, Bennie, who was devouring a candy bar while he hustled his groceries to his car. I quipped about him not waiting until he got home or at least to his car, before digging in, and Bennie grinned, then said, ferociously,  "I EARNED this!"

Mark Twain reading to me

Community.

I am writing this out by pen at our local library while Warren uses the facility's laser cutter to make engraved end caps for a crotale stand order. We were here at 9:00 when it opens, after my going next door where I am cat-sitting Sammie while Mark and Mary are out of town. I reminded Warren we still had baked wonders in our refrigerator, sent over Saturday evening when Margaux next door had a birthday party.

Birthday delights! 

Cat-sitting. Cookies. 

Community.

The Rest of the Story

A work in progress

Last week, I gave an update of our vegetable garden and showed the ignored and neglected basil bed. After embarrassing myself by admitting my lack of attention, I decided I needed to address the issue head on.

So I did.

Over the weekend, I waded into the basil (well, I sat on my gardening seat and bent over) and started pulling out weeds.

Did I get every weed out? No? Did I make progress? You bet. Is the basil grateful? Absolutely. Some of the seedlings, freed from their weedy caverns, grew overnight!

Look at me! 

It was clear that a sizable portion of the seeds I had sown did not germinate or, more likely, were smothered before they could get up past the soil. Too dark, too weedy. Fortunately, a local nursery still has seed packets and I was able to find some basil packs among the dwindling stock.

Heading soon into the garden

So all is not lost and I hope there will be a good basil crop this year. I still have more weeding to do to get the bed in better shape and I intend to follow through. After all, I am looking forward to bees in the basil and bee therapy later this summer! 

Many of us in my age bracket (i.e., old) remember legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, who, in addition to his news broadcasts, also had a weekday radio show, "The Rest of the Story." Harvey would tell a story about a historical event or individual that everyone thought they knew. He'd introduce and set the stage at the start of the broadcast, then at the end tell listeners the quirky twist or surprise facts that he had dug out. His tagline was "And now you know...the rest of the story."

I'm no Paul Harvey. But I thought the basil situation deserved an update. And now you indeed know the rest of the story. 

What the Garden Looks Like After One Month

Two of three deck planters, the largest not in the photo! 

Back in mid-May, I wrote about how Warren and I had labored to get our basic vegetable garden in and done. After that post, we spent another weekend putting together the Big Flower Pots that we set out on the deck. They are all annuals; we do for color and variety. 

And that is about it.

I wrote last year about giving up the Hej Garden in the rear of the property and how we both decided it was okay to let it go.We made some similar decisions this year about extra "stuff" we had on hand, ranging from more tomato cages than I will ever use in my life again to more (MORE) planters ranging from medium small to BIG. Warren and I reached agreement very quickly: let them go. So they ended up on our curb—the cages on a Saturday, the planters the next day—and guess what? They went to new homes in no time!

So what do we have?

This:

Our vegetable garden, June 2026

The peppers, cabbage, and tomatoes are coming on. With luck, I might have a tomato by end of the month. Time will tell.

Maybe?

The lettuce, in the lower lefthand corner of the garden, came on like gangbusters and I picked some this morning to add to our salads later today. We are having a series of hot days, so I do not know how much longer the lettuce will last. I told my neighbor to please pick some for her and her husband to enjoy.

Salad! 

The basil is struggling to get through the weeds. Yes, I know; I should have been WEEDING. I have decided that if I go out very early in the morning with my gardening stool and a fork (yes, a fork, as in "out of our silverware drawer"), I may be able to knock down the weeds and give the basil a chance.

Yes, there is basil in that mess! 

Stay tuned on that one.

And finally, in a nod to our bees and pollinators, I am delighted to see that the milkweed I curate (I say "curate" because our yard is not a butterfly garden and I limit the milkweed I let grow to maturity) has begun blooming. No bees in this photo, but I have seen them burrowing headfirst into the blooms already.

Milkweed blossoming

While I was visiting my dad earlier today. one of the workers and I talked about gardening: what did I grow? I told her, then focused on the basil, explaining that I had not weeded but needed to do so, because I make a lot (A. Lot.) of pesto in the late summer. I then told her how I let the basil go to flower for the bees, adding that last year I decided one of the best things I could do for myself was sit and listen to them, my own bee therapy. She nodded approvingly. 

"We could all use that, I think," she said. 

Indeed we could. 

Inch Twelve: On Writing, On Time

Why this photo (one of my own)? Just because I like it! 

There have recently been some changes in the online writing world with some bloggers stepping away. temporarily or otherwise, and some others changing platforms and formats. Writer John Patrick Weiss, whose works I have been reading for several years, recently announced that he was moving his blog off of Substack, which if memory serves me, he had moved to from Medium before that, because he now feels that Substack is "more like social media than a home" for his writing. There are other bloggers I have followed whose sites have become increasingly bogged down with ads, making it harder to scroll through their words. I get having ads to help garner some income; I regret how much it interferes with the real product: the writing. 

In recently rereading some of my older posts, I came across an entry from 2019, in which I noted that the writer of the blog Plough Monday, was closing it because he wanted to redirect his writing efforts to publication. I go on in my post, noting that I had been blogging since 2009, to wonder aloud about my own writing (or the lack thereof). And here I am seven years later, still not giving my "serious" writing enough time or focus. Heck, I wasn't even giving this blog that much time or focus. Although, as I write that, I think, defiantly, "hey, THIS is also serious writing!" 

I have written repeatedly about the time crunch around here, about feeling as if I am shortchanging myself because of other "things" (stretch that word as wide as you wish) that take time and attention. Last week, we had a rocket trip to Mayo, at which yet again Mayo Clinic staff demonstrated that the core vision of the Mayo brothers—"the needs of the patient come first"—is indeed woven into the fabric of that institution and not just words to be mouthed routinely. We saw longtime friends in Chicago, we traveled blue highways to reach a client of Warren's in Iowa, and our last day, encompassing my medical visit (I am stable) and the drive back home, was roughly 19 hours. Let's just say that it drove home (no pun intended) the point that I am indeed 70 and cross-country road trips are a lot harder now than even a decade ago. 

I will confess, however, that I have been sounding this note of not enough time, not enough taking care of my own needs, being on overload—whatever and however I phrase it—has also been a thread through this blog since, well, probably since the beginning. That tells me a lot right there about my own sometimes conscious, more often unconscious (or at least subconscious) tendency to heap far more on my plate than is good for me. (I know, something else to work on!) 

And now, to tie it back to where this started, I am trying to write more, starting with the weekly "Inch" post. (I posted one last Saturday, designating it a half inch. And yes, there is an update to that story. Stay tuned!) And I am trying to spend more time looking through the lens of a camera, be it my Canon or my phone. (I share my photography on Instagram; you can find me @tovadawn.) To quote my good friend and photography companion, Brandon, the "very best camera ever is the one you have with you. Every single time." He's right. (And if you want to see his stunning work, you can find him on Instagram @framesandgrainphotgraphy.) For me, photography is another way to write, to think through my life and my thoughts, and to try to capture them, written or otherwise.

We are on the cusp of summer. Gardening, writing, photography, the Justice Bus: let's see what summer holds.