There hasn’t been much rain lately, so it has been costing less to keep the lawn mowed. I made the mistake, a couple of weeks ago, of pulling vines from the rock wall with bare hands, and discovered a new allergy — morning glory vines. Blisters popped up on my hands and forearms within minutes. They’re finally going away now. I’ve never reacted to it before so this was a surprise. Online it looks like this is really common, and these vines keep regrowing like kudzu.

Another thing I learned was not to toss old grapes into the yard for the birds and the groundhog anymore. This morning the groundhog was out there eating them, but he must have left some. The local skunk showed up around 9pm and spent a long time examining the ground under the tree near my front door — smelling those grapes, apparently — so I started turning on lights and playing really loud music, hoping to frighten him away. I had to resort to shining a flashlight out the door at him and banging on the glass door before he took off. I stood out of view, because it seemed better not to be seen, as if he wouldn’t know what creature was making the racket. And be less likely to come over and spray.

I’m not sure I can walk at night anymore, because the skunk comes out to make rounds as soon as it’s dark.

The last couple of days have been wonderfully cool at night.

I’m still critiquing on Critters, the science fiction writers’ site, but lately I find the quality of work submitted is so poor it’s scary. They aren't writing in complete sentences, and the grammar is painful. It takes twice as long to read and respond to a story when it seems as if the writer is unfamiliar with how English works. I am afraid the online posting younger people do is eroding their ability to write a full page.