Do you ever start writing a post about what is going on with you, get a good way through, and think 'oh, for heaven's sake, they don't care about that?' Sometimes I decide it takes too long to explain something, so delete what I've written. But then I'm at a loss for what to write about so go off and rearrange things in the garage for awhile. Next thing I know, it's two days later, and I haven't been holding up my end here.

Remember the Tree Cutting? It was a lot of fun making the planter out of a section of it. Mr. Troutbend asked me if I had any use for a hollow log, and I said 'planter.' We'd had one out in front of the house made from a pine log for about 10 years, and this spring it fell apart.



When we took the bark off the piece of wood, there were beautiful designs, seemingly random tracings, but then I realized they were made by insects burrowing under the bark. The official name is 'galleries.'



This project was a chainsaw challenge, but I think it was good experience toward becoming more dextrous with the saw.

I was reading this morning about another food poisoning scare related to cantaloupe: salmonella in fruit coming from southwestern Indiana and affecting 20 states so far. The contamination is not only in the rind, but also in the fruit itself.

Last year there was the listeria contamination of cantaloupe from the Rocky Ford area of Colorado. The cause was one producer's newly-installed processing facility that washed the fruit and contaminated it. They had purchased the machinery from a potato grower, and of course the difference between potatoes and fresh fruit is the potatoes are always cooked before being eaten. The buyers of the cantaloupe - supermarket chains - had hired a company to certify that the melon producer was using sanitary good practices. They inspected the plant, and noted some deficiencies, but nobody followed up to make sure they got remedied.

For many years I have avoided eating melon that has been cut up and served with the rind still on, because the outside of the rind could touch the edible part, and there is no way to know if it was washed before cutting.

Not much else new going on here, except the air feels like fall, we have fewer hummingbirds every day, and all our animals are doing well. Our sunlight has a golden quality because it is filtered through haze from wildfires burning in other states.