When I was a little girl and we had a stretch of hot, humid weather at the end of August, we were forbidden to play outdoors.

The monarchs seem particularly fond of the bright-colored zinnias. I’m not sure I noticed in the past.

When I first began writing this column over 10 years ago, I had some sort of rant about one thing or another.

I could not have been happier with the lovely rain last Saturday afternoon.

Caterpillars are eating my garden greens. More accurately, they are voraciously consuming every leaf in sight, leaving me almost nothing but skeletonized shadows of the leaves’ former flourishing selves.

A couple of us were complaining about the hot, humid weather in Vineyard Grocers. Mark, the manager told us that Oman on the Arabian peninsula just set the all-time highest low temperature – 109!