Is it September yet?

Garden waste pick-up today. They missed it two weeks ago, possibly because of the heat, so I had an extra bin of weeds and rotting cherries in the back yard to add to my front yard hedge trimmings. Went to get them and found the walkway between the houses ankle high in rain. Cherry pits and leaves had blocked the small-holed drain in the middle of the walk. Swept that all away, watched last night's rain gurgle down the grate, reflected that drain is probably illegal as well because for sure my bro doesn't have one next to his house. Everyone else has walkways that are graded to drain to the street; but not us, oh no.

So must remember to sweep drain covering whenever rain is forecast. Am annoyed to be doing this still in August but maybe I've forgotten what ordinary summers are like. Mind, ordinary summers don't have the profusion of cherries I had this year; or they dropped earlier; or they were eaten by the birds who wouldn't look at them this year until they started to rot, whereupon they flocked to the tree and proceeded to get drunk on them.

But sweeping water made me miss the garden waste pickup so I still have that bin of weeds and stinking cherries sitting out back.
( Cut for July stats )