It’s either my advancing age, the fact that I work outdoors, or climate change, but it’s simply too darned hot. Now that the fair is over, it is remarkably slower in the traffic department. We drove past the fairgrounds on Monday. It was sad to see the remnants of a parking lot in the big field and the booths coming down. I saw the ticket booth on the back of a truck headed for the ferry. Time marches on at an alarming rate.

I managed some major harvesting this weekend, thanks to the ever cheerful Violet. We picked several dozen of the cabbages and processed them into sauerkraut. For every 10 quarts of shredded cabbage, add three tablespoons plus two teaspoons of canning salt. Mix and press until the cabbage releases enough liquid to cover itself. After a week or so, it will be kraut. It’s very good for a person’s digestion.

We also pulled the rest of the onions and laid them out on every surface of the greenhouse, shed and back rooms. They should cure in a week and be ready for winter storage. I must encourage everyone to start them from seed mid-winter. They come right along, are huge and very cost efficient.

I have been appreciating the Kentucky Wonder pole beans this year. It is an old-fashioned flavorful bean that tends to get “beany”. This year I accepted this fact and have been eating them as shell beans rather than string green ones. I put the whole pods into boiling water for a few moments. After they cool, the beans slip right out easily.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the lack of bees. Allium and sedum flowers are saying differently. They are loaded with several varieties. Besides honeybees, there are bumbles, tiny wild ones and a few more types. I don’t know their names or even what a person who studies insects is called.

I had two mother turkeys with their different-aged offspring hanging around the property. One of the mothers disappeared and the other mother has adopted her babies. Pretty cute!

What’s not cute is our President’s need to nickname his opponents.

The irony of his slur of Pocahontas for Elizabeth Warren is far-reaching.

In elementary school I belonged to the Weekly Reader Book Club. One year I got Pocahontas. It was the pre-Disney alternative history of the Indian princess who saved the life of John Smith. It was written as a young girl’s fantasy.

The real story, of course, is her kidnapping and death at 21 in England.

From the Spanish to the English, the treatment of native peoples has been (and still is) appalling.

I grew up near the reservation in Salamanca, N.Y. The Seneca Nation is the largest of the six-nation Iroquois Confederacy. The Allegany reservation actually leased the land to the city of Salamanca.

From an early age, our family told of a Seneca ancestor, Miama Stark. We were told the same stories as I imagine Elizabeth Warren was told in her youth.

I wonder, if we took a DNA test, if any of it was even true, or, if so, am I 1/64th Native American?

Trump’s use of Pocahontas for the Massachusetts senator is just further proof of his profound ignorance.

It seems, however, that many of his supporters laud him and each other for their ignorance. East Coast well-educated elites are the new curse words.

I’ve said it before and I’m sticking to it: I want a President smarter than I am.