I love the new software. One of the things I like best about it is it's comprehensive tracking features built right into the back end. No more visiting the cpanel! Interestingly this is also the place I found out where some of my more interesting traffic was coming from. Apparently a handful of internet users are coming to My Grandpa's Garden after doing a web search for um, adult material regarding grandparents. I'd rather not type out the exact string of words here and reinforce the theme. I'm pretty sure that it has to do with the combination of the name of the blog and this post from last year.

Anyway. Just a message to you folk, none of that here! All the grandpas in this vicinity are fully clothed and are staying that way. Grandmas too. Heck, I may need to put on a sweater!

I ventured out a few days ago and this is what I found. It's certainly damaged although I didn't pull it all out like maybe I should have. Part of me still has hope that bent doesn't necessarily mean broken. Is it too much to ask for just enough popcorn for one bowl? I mean, in a garden that has been defined by serious failure, I'm willing to take any small measure of success.

Oh dear. I don't know how to feel about this at all. This little watermelon is so spunky, so doggedly determined and yet, really so completely doomed. How could it possibly grow, ripen and mature before the first frost? I'm so torn between happiness and hopelessness. What is this plant thinking? Really? What would possibly possess it to wait an entire summer and set fruit in september! September!!

This year the garden has been a wreck. It is little and cold comfort that the neighbors are in the same boat. I remember last year thinking how beautiful and bountiful the garden was and how I hoped it wasn't a fluke. And while I do not believe that we are in for this sort of destitution every year, I am having a hard time being optimistic about future prospects.

The corn is beautiful though isn't it? I hope it is all okay out there. We got hit pretty hard by Ike. (Yes, I know, I'm in Illinois, who would have though?) Our entire neighborhood and who knows how many other houses had the drains in our basements surge water until we were all standing in up to a foot. Some people had more. There has even been talk about renting a neighborhood dumpster just to get rid of all the ruined stuff.

Needless to say I haven't felt like wading out to the corn to see how it's doing but I'm betting it's not doing well. I think it will be fine though as long as the water drains off today.

Overall it's been a melancholy few days. Fall is whispering in and that is always a strange and reflective time for me. The smell of mothballs and old clothes that wafted out from closet behind grandpa's front door as he fished out his blue jacket and hat. The taste of coffee he diluted with creamer and sugar (I still drink it this way). The crunching of leaves underfoot. The tilling and quieting of the garden earth for the winter.

I will be watching the popcorn and dreaming of spring, and possibilities.