Monday September 9th

It's been a couple of weeks since I last gave an update and things have changed in the interim. Our tomato plants are pretty much tapped out - we did get some cherries and a couple of big ones this week but it's clear that their time is almost up. Interestingly, an "at will" plant, no doubt due to some fruit I rototilled in last winter, has a couple of tomatoes on it. We'll see if they make it. This past Saturday was the first time this summer that we purchased tomatoes at the grower's market for our weekly needs.

Eggplants are completely done and a bit of a disappointment. Next year, less plants and more specificity in cultivars with the purple globe style being the best for our climate.

Hummingbirds are down to 8-10 individuals now and I'm only refreshing the feeders weekly. I suspect that a few more cold mornings (it's regularly been 55-58° for the past week) will be enough motivation to send all but the hardiest stragglers on to Central America. They're still busy in the morning and throughout the day, but they hole up earlier in the evening now, about 7 instead of 9, no doubt to conserve energy through to cool night. We've had a half dozen or so Common Nighthawks overhead each night this week and I swear I saw and heard a Cactus Wren but I'm going to have to wait on binocular  visual confirmation before adding it to the yard list.

The main highlight this week are our Morning Glories that continue to put on a beautiful show each morning. And at no cost to us this year, given that they just appeared at the start of the Monsoons. It's simply wonderful to walk out back in the morning and stop to admire them slowly covering one of the arena fences.

 

Lastly, the sun is making its way quickly towards the south right now, taking giants leaps weekly. Similar to my Analemma project from last year, this time around I am merely tracking its position 1 hour before sunset. I began on June 21st, the Summer Solstice and will continue until the winter's equivalent on the 21st of December. It was interesting to see that it really doesn't jump much between June and August, until the middle to end of the latter. Between small degrees of change, and heavy rain clouds in the west throughout July, I didn't get any photos. But now you can really see the change.