This post is not about the mythical creatures that lurk in fiction, but the real trolls who frequent blogs, forums, and social media. These are the people who sometimes make the internet unpleasant at least, and dangerous at worst.  A troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat rooms, or a blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response, or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. Sometimes the postings are blatant and really obvious. Good examples can be seen on Youtube as well as other public sites. They tend to be just obvious hate posts such as "this video really sucks, and you are lame and stupid"! But it still often gets a reply even though it is clearly bait. The more worrisome trolls are the ones who are more subtle and less clearly a troll.
I read quite a few forums and smaller web sites posts and I recently saw a good example of the less obvious troll entry. A woman on a craft site was showing how she presented autumn leaves in a scrap- booking  tutorial. The first few comments discussed the information in the project , but then there was the following post: "This is really not an original idea and I have been doing this for a long time. What we need is new thoughts and not information that is already available". This was totally off-topic but the next ten posts had to do with the originality of the tutorial and not the content. The blog author had to defend herself and never claimed the idea to be original. The troll had redirected the posts and was probably satisfied with the result. He or she wanted an emotional response and received it.
Those of us who write original material are always open to constructive criticism and differing opinions. And we welcome it, as we can learn from the feed back. But, be a aware that all comments can be a troll in disguise. Most trolls say that it is for amusement and fun, but if they are searching for sites to disrupt, their lives must be somewhat sad. They should start a website and let us comment....

Here in New Hampshire we have already had frost so I was surprised to see the flowers in the photo. Not only are they in full bloom, but they are in a pile of old branches and rocks. There is little soil available for growth. This is very close to where the opossum was trapped. (Archived earlier on this page). From what I can learn on the net, they appear to be a type of daisy. There are many types  so I am not really sure how to make certain of the variety. I did however,learn a new word in the search. Inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Of course that does not help me learn how it arrived on a strange place with no other daisies in sight. I wonder if the opossum had anything to do with it. If anyone knows more about this flower, annual/perennial, type, please post a comment. Meanwhile I will enjoy it until the snow arrives...

The growing season has come to a close and we are all dreading winter. Well, there are many who wait for the snow and cold but not me. We all live here for the seasons as they come an go so we all get some great weather depending on our preferences.This is my first time with sunflowers and they look good to me. But, I am not a connoisseur at all. All I did was plant the seeds! The bees really did spend a lot of time with them and as the photo below shows, they are still here. It is nice to see the pollinators hanging around.
The strawberry photo is here because I have no idea why or how strawberries grow. I put the plants in containers last year for the first time and had berries by the end of June. I covered them for the winter and this year there was great foliage but no berries. All of a sudden at the end of August the berries started growing and now they are still growing. I have admitted here before that I am not very good at growing flowers and I guess that now I have to add fruit. And, I saw a hummingbird packing her bags for a trip south. Bon Voyage...