They don't know the words

Roundup:

--I was watering the garden the other day when I saw what I thought was an enormous dragonfly. It only took an instant for me to see that it was actually a hummingbird, hovering in and around Kim's wildflower patch. It was a drab brown, which I suppose means it's a female. It stayed for only a minute or so before heading into the woods.

--We got some benefit out of the garden today-- Kim's making some Amish soup, and some Tuna Bastards (tm, the Hirata family), so I dug up a bunch of potatoes and picked a few tomatoes. Kim also harvested some parsley.

--The sunflowers have gone from looking straight up at the sky to facing forward, indicating that they are about to open up and show off their flowers.

--Some of the vines, particularly the pumpkins, have developed a powdery looking mold on most of their leaves. That doesn't look good.

--I "staked" a few tomatoes today. Staked is in quotes, because I basically drove sticks into the ground and leaned the tomatoes up against the sticks. Some of the tomatoes are in cages, but I have more plants than cages, so I had to improvise.

-- About two months ago, thousands of little black crickets appeared in the garden and the surrounding field. Every step I took would send some of them scrambling to get away from me. Today, there are far fewer crickets out there, but the ones that remain have developed into giant adults. A week ago, the surviving crickets started playing their music in the field. I thought I remembered that they chirped (by rubbing their legs together) primarily at night, but around here, it's been pretty much around the clock. It's nice to have a constant background noise other than television or passing traffic.