The Mountain Thymes

 Whew!  Here's hoping the  humid tropical energy is done and gone after it caused havoc to my body and joints during the six or seven weeks it lingered out in the gulf and ocean.   Recently we moved the fire pit from where it's been setting for years up near the garage down the hill overlooking the garden.  Cliff added so many containers for my kitchen gardens that the the pit didn't work there anymore. He's cleared away debris and leaves and eventually we'll have rock on the hill.  Digging into a mountain is nearly impossible so he leveled the pit as much as he could. It's a start.  He took resting breaks between digging and placing rocks. I couldn't help place rocks because it would have caused hand pain hours later.  Now that cooler weather has arrived, we can work outside more and putter at our projects. It's almost time to plant my fall garlic for a late spring harvest.  It can't believe how quickly time flies.   We added mushroom compost to the

 Evil hummingbirds misbehaving................ Keeping their eyes on each other before settling to drink............. a female (left) and male (right)   We've had some travelers from up northern stop at our feeders on their journey southward.  The travelers cause quite a ruckus.  When Cliff and I are sitting out on the back porch, the birds totally ignore us as they chase each other down through the center of the porch flying by our heads.  We only have about three more weeks of their entertainment before they return to their winter homes.  This  strange spring/summer with the pandemic and the bizarre wet weather with no sunny days was a blur in our memories. I'm already imagining  what I can do differently next March in the gardens. Cliff had a hankering for "cottage pie."  Real shepherd's pie is made with cute little innocent lambies but Cliff scrambled hamburg for his cottage pie.  The internet said using hamburg was cottage pie, so it must be true. Grating Ker