Not corn!

I looked out in my back yard the other day and discovered that the two plants growing in my garden are most definitely not corn.  As you can see in this picture, they're sorghum!  I suppose the fact that they weren't growing tall should have clued me, but to me the small corn and sorghum plants are indistinguishable.  I've seen sorghum in fields all my life, but had no idea what it is and what it's used for.  So of course I had to look it up.  It's a type of grass raised for its grain which is used in the US mostly as fodder for livestock, and it's put in things like birdseed.  So I learned something new.

Things have gotten a little less crazy busy in the last week.  I'm mostly caught up at work from being gone.  This coming week I took a vacation week just to do projects around the house finally - a stay-cation.  I'm not taking my usual 3-week August trip, simply because I've been traveling or gone from work a fair amount anyway this summer.  So I decided not to go this year.  Plus my sister who often goes with me is mad at me currently and my friend who goes, can't this year.  I could have gone by myself, as I have many times in the past, but I decided I'd been gone enough for one summer.  

My mint plants have been flowering for the last month or so.  The blossoms are pretty, and pretty unique as you can see.  And the honeybees just love them, so I have a fair number of honeybees out there in the back most of the time these days.    

The birds are figuring out I've re-filled the feeders and are starting to come back, but I haven't yet seen the flock of sparrows who were here.  Mostly I've seen house finches, the cardinal pair and the doves.  

I should mention that I bought a new car yesterday.  A pretty, midnight blue 2014 Subaru Outback with all the bells and whistles.  It's going to take me a while to learn to drive it I think.  Everything's electronic.  Push button ignition (no key!), electronic parking break, back-up cameras for seeing behind you when you're going in reverse, navigation system,  cell phone synced by bluetooth, etc, etc.  It also has forward cameras, which if you leave them on while you're driving, will brake the car before you can if they see an obstruction ahead of you, and will also beep to warn you if you change lanes without signalling (figuring you're falling asleep at the wheel). You can also set the cruise control to drive a specific distance from the car ahead of you, so if that car speeds up, so will yours and if that car stops, so will yours.  Won't be long before cars are driving themselves.


So far I'm driving with all those things turned OFF, although I have tried out the navigation system.  We don't agree with the best route sometimes, so it politely recalculates the route if I go where it didn't intend me to.  It's a pretty nice car, and handles like a dream, so so far I'm pretty pleased.  I promised my sister I'd sell her the 2008 Outback, so that one will go to her whenever she wants to come and get it.

That's about all for today.  I thought I'd end this with a picture of Zoe enjoying both the sunlight and the air-conditioning from the house.   Or maybe she's guarding the door.     

Later.