Another foggy sunless morning.  This has been the strangest summer that we can remember since purchasing our home in 2007.  Throughout the summer there have only been a handful of visible sunrises.  Fog and heavy clouds greet me most mornings.  While Cliff is sleeping I sit on the porch, as early as 6:15, and listen to the distant whippoorwill, the moisture so heavy some mornings that it sound like rain on the leaves, and the waking Carolina wrens.  During this quiet time is how I learned that our wrens snore.

Now that summer is winding down and dusk comes earlier, two to three Carolina wrens cuddle up for the night before 8 o'clock in this hanging plant.  At dark I bring in the seed feeder and a hummingbird feeder because raccoons or possums raid the feeders at dark. Each morning I return feeders to their hooks.  One morning I heard rhythmic squeaking so tiptoed gingerly near the plant to listen and decided to stay until I heard other wrens singing. Suddenly three wrens shot out of the plant, landed on nearby branches, and started chirping and singing. What a way to get your day started!!

I started pulling dead, dying, dried up plants from the garden leaving mostly flowering plants for the hummingbirds and the bumble bees.  

Bumblebees are so neat.  They don't mind that I'm working in the garden while they're buzzing from flower to flower.  They hold onto the red salvia flower and push themselves as far up into the flower as they can.  This time in August thee lower garden is full of red salvia and bees.  

Garlic chives in the container gardens attract mason bees and other beneficial insects. 

I did plant a few fall seeds........chard, lettuce, collards, spinach just to see if they would produce.  Being in the garden helps me through the emotional times.  Cliff is still doing as well as expected.  He's tired and naps each morning after breakfast and around 3 each afternoon.  When family or friends ask how I am doing, I always say I'm okay.  Truthfully, I may not be.  Sometimes waves of sadness come over the both of us. We face each day as it comes, sometimes each hour at a time.