It is difficult to maintain a cheerful nature in hot and humid weather. I suppose it’s great for beachgoers.

The field below the Tashmoo overlook is awash with butterfly weed. The town mows it down a few times a year but it never seems to mind. I have a few plants on the property. I gathered seed pods years ago and started them mid-winter inside. Germination was spotty at best but I do enjoy the few I have.

The late Ellie Keohane drove down from Chilmark several times a week to enjoy her morning muffin and cup of Joe sitting in the overlook simply enjoying life.

Deer have been enjoying buds on the daylilies at several locations—the little jerks. They wait until right before they open. Apparently Bobbex needs to be applied more frequently.

I’m a big fan of the deep pink rambling rose. It is wending its way up into trees along the roadways in Chilmark. Just lovely. Some have to be 40 feet up.

Also, the trumpet vine has made an appearance. There is one just past the lower end of Lambert’s Cove Road. Also on County Road in Oak Bluffs across from the entrance to Weboqua there is one that I’ve admired for years. Not admirable, however, is the inordinate amount of bittersweet. It really gets away from a person in record time.

I noticed several rhododendrons in full bloom this past week. Isn’t that odd or is it just a different cultivar? Who knows?

With the exception of insect pests, my vegetable garden is doing its job. I’ve been enjoying several kinds of summer squash—zucchini, pattypan, and Ronde de Nice (a perfectly round French zucchini). Sadly, however, I may pull the plants this week. The squash bug is getting the better of me.

I did plant some new seeds of the aforementioned varieties on Sunday. I hope I get a row cover on them this time. Take my advice—I’m not using it!

I’m fond of the true blue chicory that is everywhere this month. It seems to thrive even in sidewalk cracks. There are so few true blues midsummer. Bachelor buttons have seen better days. Platycodon is more of a purple. I guess we could give a shout-out to the adorable nigella AKA love-in-a-mist. It’s very blue and reseeds like crazy.

I bought a package of the Farm Hub strawberries. They were grown hydroponically in the greenhouse at the old Thimble Farm property. They were very good, small and flavorful, much like my own which have gone by. The giant ones, while beautiful simply do not have the flavor.

I remember picking wild strawberries on the side of a mountain with my Dad’s mother, Grandma Kate. They were very small, not much bigger than a pea, but incredibly and memorably sweet. I hope I enjoyed my time with her back then. Oh to have back some of those happy times.

I crammed into the Performing Arts Center with about 1,000 close friends on Saturday morning to hear Elizabeth Warren. Wow! She is a bundle of energy. She gave a history of our economic situation back to F.D.R. When she made it to the eighties under Ronald Reagan, the shift happened. Truly—the rich got richer. Trickle-down economics did not work for me or any of my friends. We were raising small children and times were tough here on the Vineyard in those days.

I find it interesting that many Trump supporters have disdain for us East Coast “elites.” Granted, I wear Birkenstocks and have an occasional cappuccino, but I’m still working and paying taxes.

Massachusetts, unlike Mississippi, pays more into the federal government than we receive back in so called entitlements.