The rosemary is just for the summer here. It's in the ground and very happy with our heat and drought. I've promised myself that I'll be ruthless and cut it to the ground just before it freezes.

We have that beautiful blue sky here, too, Alice, but it's not as big - hemmed in by trees and hills. The predicted thunderclouds aren't here.

I live on the line between where worms are native and where they're an introduction. It's very hard to think about. The glaciers killed them off and they were slowly migrating back when Europeans arrived. I read a really strange colonial report of a "plague of worms" in the springs they were using for drinking water. They were saved by the work of "cherry birds" - the American robin. I read all this in various gardening and nature magazines. I think I'd like to talk with a scientist who can read history like that in our soil, but I don't know who they are.