A Bluejay disturbed the unusual quiet this afternoon, loudly telling off our resident feline, Tessa, who was lounging on the cool stone walkway and, as far as I could tell, minding her own business. Nevertheless, I invited her indoors with a treat so the Jay could avail himself of a drink from the fountain.

Mike has been working from home 90% of the time since Covid, and a year ago our young son moved home with his 70-pound, boisterous dog Juneau, a Husky/German Shepherd mix, while he looked for a job. At the time, we still had two cats, three if you count my sister’s aging cat, Queen B. Sharon’s kitty lived with us while my sister convalesced at a skilled nursing facility. Queen B has passed, followed by my sweet kitty Mouse last October. My son found a job and now housing in San Francisco and moved last month, so our household has contracted to two adults and one mellow kitty.

I love my husband, my sons, the pooch, and the cats. Still, I’m thoroughly enjoying this day of solitude. I’ve been puttering in the garden, watching the bees traverse the nepeta flowers, discovering tomatoes on the plants that the nightly visitors have missed, and marveling at how quickly things grow at this time of year.

To my delight and surprise, a lone pumpkin vine is trailing along the back walkway. It’s been flowering and dropping spent flowers as they are wont to do, and eventually a male and a female flower form, and if you’re lucky, magic happens, and a tiny pumpkin appears. The first pumpkin is now the size of a baseball, and a second one is forming down the vine. These garden surprises make me smile. We grew pumpkins for years, but gave up after back-to-back years of nasty squash bug infestations left me disheartened. Fingers crossed.

Several annuals have run amok, including Nepeta, four-o’clocks, and the pair of tomato plants that went into the ground in May. We enjoyed delicious tomatoes from the beefsteak plant and more from the cherry tomato, but then fruit production slowed, and the vines grew, towered, and partially fell over. Even restaking and tying back proved futile, so today I pulled up a steel garden bench, more decorative than seat-worthy, to offer additional support.

Mike spotted a gorgeous dragonfly perched on a stem, so I ran for my phone and snapped a few pics. It resembles a flower from a distance. Several butterflies passed through, but alas, not a single photo.  The lizards are active, and for the first time I saw one jump to catch a bug.

A pair of mourning doves hang out on the street light, then move in for a drink at the bird bath on our deck. We had a pigeon visit our garden for a week, so tame that I felt sure it had a home. One of my neighbors joked that it had adopted me.

Our sunflowers are starting to go to seed, but they performed well. We had to run out and tie them to a trellis a few weeks back when heavy winds blew through, but they remained upright. The squirrels are surely waiting in the wings.

For a while now, I’ve wanted to create a water source for the bees.

I see suggestions every year, but never quite got around to it. It was simple to create. I washed out a heavy planting pot and an equally weighted saucer and stacked them in the middle of the nepeta. The bees love the tiny white flowers and spend a lot of time there.

The trick is to create a shallow bowl of water and a smooth surface to land on. I used clay shapes from my stash of vase weights, and added a decorative glass cat for interest (mine, not theirs). I tucked a water bottle into the shrubs so that it’s easy to top off each day. Between the heat and the shallow water in the saucer, it dries out quickly.

Further garden projects await, but we’re heading into a seven-day heatwave starting Friday, so I’ll be hiding from the sun.

Meanwhile, I’m manifesting love, light, and hope for peace in our world.

Bougainvillea extraordinaire