August—and our tomatoes are ripening like crazy. Nothing better than a tomato sandwich (butter or olive oil, your choice)! All we planted this year was tomatoes and peppers. Being our first garden year we weren’t sure what the critters wouldn’t touch (they tasted some of my flowers but left the vegetables alone). Next year I’m hoping we try a few green beans, too, but they’re very popular with groundhogs.

On the floral side, my first moonflower bloomed yesterday. I read that they only bloom at night. I thought that meant they would close up in daylight, but we had one in all its glory yesterday. Mary the Photographer came down and took a wonderful picture of it.

It’s also time for the night-blooming cereus to blossom. One of the three has three buds on it right now and the one that bloomed last year has one so far. They’ll probably start to flower in about a week, depending on how much rain we get.

Sadly, this is also the season when people dump kittens (Minneapolis and St. Paul, the twin kitties, came to me around now; Ink and Blink came later in the fall). And since we still live in the woods, we still get to deal with the results of someone else’s cold-hearted carelessness.

This is Miss B. Don’t know what her fate will be yet, but at least she won’t be torn apart by wild animals, hit by a car, or starve to death. Spay or neuter, people!

Update: Turns out all that prettiness is a boy kitty. But he—who should be called Miracle because he was only found when my 85 Pounds of Love accidentally stepped on him in the tall grass—has found a home. One happy ending.