The mockingbirds are dive-bombing the cats in earnest now. Their babies are fledging and making their first tries at flight from the nest. Anything with fur is subject to attack, including people, as the birds shriek and swoop at anything near their nests. It is going to be exhilarating getting the mail at the end of the driveway for the next few weeks, rather like being in a live arcade game with little monsters swooping in for the kill before you can get the prize.

I'm shrieking to myself with equal vigor as I deal with the garden. The weeds are winning the war for control of the garden. I made an outdoor compost pile for extra composting space. Rapunzel and Baby are still gulping every weed and scrap I can give them, but not as fast as the compostables have piled up. Now if I could only find the time to move the weeds from their current location to the pile.

The vigor of the tomato plants keeps me struggling on, though. The first tiny tomatoes appeared shortly after I posted my last entry, and the biggest ones are now flattened spheres nearly as big as a golf ball in diameter. The plants are even stronger than last year's impressive patch, showing clear evidence that all that hard work improving the soil ought to pay off very nicely indeed, barring a disaster. They are the only annual plants in the garden holding off the weeds and shading them instead of the reverse.

They're also making a fine jungle for the cats to hide in when it is nap time. I have to watch for black streaks of fur among the lower leaves, indicating a snoozing cat lolling there. Otherwise, I may start watering and send a surprised cat streaking out of the patch with great indignation over his soaked fur. They stop a suitable distance away and glower at me, then shake vigorously and tend to their matted coats.

The trees and shrubs are doing well from all that feeding, too, with the summer bloomers coming on strong now. The roses had a lovely first flush of blooms and are now making loads of new buds just beginning to open. The butterfly bush is opening its strong-scented lances of dark purple blooms, a favorite of the swallowtail butterflies that visit our garden. The deutzia bushes have nearly finished and the nearby altheas are taking over the color in those areas of the garden. The hydrangeas are opening airy umbrellas of flowers as well.

The weather is maturing into the stormy strength of summer. A trace of spring's sweetness still tinges the mornings, but the afternoon sun blazes with summer's intensity at the height of the day. We've had the first serious tornado warnings but have missed the severe weather that has struck other areas of the country. The storms rumble with the reverberating bass voice of thunder as lightning flashes. The gentle spring showers have definitely grown into blustering storms powered by sweltering afternoons. I'm regularly picking up fallen branches shaken loose by gusty winds now.

It is a bit early in the year for it to be quite so hot, but one must take the days as they come. I've turned the hose on the garden to supplement the rain we've had with a heavy soaking several times already. The sky is overcast enough today that I'm hoping for more rain to water the tomatoes well. We've had some rain already, but the next major front is still a few days away.

I've finished the patches for the vest and have most of them sewn together. There is enough yarn to try a corrugated ribbing, one done in one color for the knit stitches and another for the purled stitches, so I think I will try that for the bottom ribbing. I haven't quite decided if I want to make sleeves to make a sweater out of it, but it already has quite enough visual impact without adding more from patterned sleeves and plain sleeves don't quite seem right. Just a little more sewing and then I can pick up stitches across the bottom and get back to knitting again.