Going to try something new in the garden. It’s called solarization. I read an article in the paper and then went online to find more information. I ended up on a website called Floridagardener.com or something like that. They had a big dissertation on solarizing the garden and how it was the only way to succeed with a garden in Florida.

The theory is that you heat the garden soil which kills off lots of fungus, bacteria, and critters. When the solarization process is complete, supposedly you are working with nearly sterile soil – still all the nutrients but none of the evil stuff. You do it in July and maybe August. Last year I had decided to just walk away from the garden in those months – but didn’t remember I had made that decision this year. But this new find gives me the impetus to follow through and use the summer to cook the ground. What you do is cover it with clear plastic, 1-6 mil. and let it sit for 6 weeks or so. According to the person who wrote the article, the surface temp could reach as high as 140 degrees and up to 100 degrees 18” deep. But I’m not so sure it’s going to work in my garden. It has to do with the level of the lake and, in turn, the ground water level. The lake is as high as it’s been since 2004 when we had back to back wet hurricanes in a matter of weeks. The lake was maybe 6” higher then than now. Years ago George had sunk some concrete filled 4” pvc pipes into the ground as supports for part of his pigeon coop. When we removed the coop and turned that area into a garden, we left 6 of those posts in, thinking maybe they would be good supports for frost cloth or something. Well they kind of get in the way so I pulled them out. They were sunk about 3′ down and had been in for at least 20 years so it was tough to get them out. It nearly killed me but I managed to wrestle them out of the ground. The holes they left quickly filled up with water so it was easy to see the ground water level. It was about 10” down which explains why plants with roots longer than 10” were dying off. But my concern is that with the water level that close to the surface will the soil ever heat much or am I fighting a giant heat sink. Still, I’ve to to try.

So I hit Lowes to find out what kind of investment it was going to take for enough plastic to cover the garden. Turns out the 1 mil stuff is really cheap. I picked up 10’x20′ rolls for $3 and set out spreading it over the dormant areas of the garden. I clipped back the Golden Guardian marigold to ground level, leaving the roots in place to keep warding off the nematodes then laid the plastic over top. So that should be a combination of poisoning them and cooking them – all organic and natural of course. Of course as soon as I had the first two sheets laid down, it rained 2” in an hour so the whole thing was underwater. My plan is to leave it in place until mid Sept. At that time and assuming no big storms pending, I’ll replant the fall stuff.

This same site told me that now is the time to start my fall seeds – brocolli, onions, celery and stuff like that. In the past I had not done that until mid Sept but based on this input, I’ll change my strategy and start earlier. I guess the worst that can happen is that it’s too hot for the little seedlings and I start again in mid Sept when I usually do.

And a question for the serious gardener – if you sprinkle Ambro fire ant killer in the garden, will the plants take some of it up and protect you from fire ant bites? Since you’re going only after fire ants can you still call the garden organic? yeah, I think so.

—————-
I thought it was just a bit strange when Sarah Palin resigned before her term was over. I think it is just a bit strange that Mel Martinez resigned before his term was over. Now the mayor of Eustis resigns. Wonder if something’s going on? When asked why, both gave really nebulous, fuzzy answers. Neither of these politicians was in any trouble; no health issues. I mean personally, I wouldn’t take either of the jobs if it was handed to me on a silver platter. Can you imagine going to work every day and know that you might have to interface with guys like Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi, or Henry, nostrils, Waxman? But folks who get as far up the political food chain as these two, have really big egos and strong stomachs so you wouldn’t think they’d jump from active politics to a staff position in the RNC or something. With Palin, I could see where the gov’t job was cutting into her salmon fishing time but to the best of my knowledge, Martinez isn’t a fisherman. Is it possible that the Castro brothers have made him an offer he can’t refuse? nah. I thought maybe Martinez and our Gov, Charlie Crist, had made some kind of deal where Charlie would run for the senate and Mel would run for Gov. nah. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see where this goes. I’m very, very suspicious.

I’d sure like to see a real analysis of the cash for clunkers program. The Feds pop out either $3500 or $4500 but how much of it comes back to gov’ts – local and federal- in terms of sales tax, income tax, registration fees etc etc. Then what about gross employment impact – employment at dealers, manufacturers, and the bars where the car salesmen go after having a killer day. Count the savings in unemployment costs and the taxes all those folks pay. And what about the chain that starts with the clunker itself. Car crushers – is there enough steel being recycled to mean anything? The crunched cars have to be moved to a melt down facility and eventually poured into real, useable steel. It’s always been my understanding that reclaimed steel is less expensive to manufacture than steel from raw ore. Bet this one be an interesting Ph.D. project for some business school guy or guyette. I know it’s really popped my Ford stock. Two of the top five cars being purchased from Clunker deals are Fords. But I just wonder, if it wasn’t for the fact that the fed’s now own GM, would there be a cash for clunkers program at all? If they had taken over Whirlpool, would it be a cash for appliances program? What about a cash for air conditioner program? Wait, I’ve got it – how about a big tax rebate and you could spend it on anything you wanted but – you would be required to actually spend it on goods – couldn’t pay down mortgages or credit cards. I just don’t think the cash for pot hole thing makes any sense.

Did you hear the latest medical finding that there is widespread vitamin D deficiencies? Duh – you get lots of vitamin D from the sun but not if you are slathered up with SPF 50. Turns out it’s hard to get it from diets and supplements. For example you’d have to drink a quart of milk a day to get the minimum recommended amount – the same as 15 minutes in the sun.

Seems this vitamin deficiency causes or contributes to diabetes, high blood pressure, and weak bones. So maybe the whole increase in childhood diabetes is related to not getting enough sun, Is it possible then that the large increase in juvenile diabetes is not because of chubby kids, but kids that have been protected from or avoid the sun’s rays. You know, just not getting outside and playing like they used to. The whole sun thing never made much sense to me anyway. Fifty years ago everybody knew the sun was good for you. Logically, if the sun was bad, humans would have died out somewhere along the way or maybe evolved with hairy bodies or scales or something. Especially when you think that it’s only in the last few decades that people became paranoid about sun exposure. Of course in later life you have to worry about skin problems and do annual visits to a dermatologist to burn things off your body. I’m not totally convinced it’s because of sun exposure but at least you made it to old age and didn’t die early from a lack of sun exposure. The dermatologist we go to is a poster boy for using sun block in moderation. This guy must bathe in SPF 80 a couple times a day. He wears white doctors gear and his skin basically blends into his uni. Every time he asks me if I use sunblock, I am oh so tempted to say “no, because then I’d look like you”. But I don’t. I do use sunblock on my face when I’m going to the beach. Particularly lip stuff and nose coating but other than that……………. When we were teeners, we’d sometimes use a mix of baby oil and iodine. Not sure if that was SPF 1 or what but it was strictly done so you’d get brown rather than red. I think if you have red hair and freckles, that’s God’s way of telling you to use sunblock. For the rest of us – just take it easy and work into it over the season.

Nancy and I felt a vitamin D deficiency coming on yesterday so we quick hit the beach for half a day. As I stood there in the surf with my new rod, I could just feel those D hormones creeping into my body and recharging my battery. Caught about a dozen small whiting too so that didn’t hurt any. When I say small, I mean 10 fish to the pound. If it were bluefish season, they would have been bait. And one other beach comment – for whatever reason the water is way cooler than normal. It seems to me to be about mid November kind of cool; beginning of the bluefish run cool Didn’t hurt the fishing but caused the sand fleas to dig deep and me to buy shrimp. That’s very unusual in the summer.
One more D comment – got me to wondering if liberal disease is caused by a vitamin D deficiency. I had always considered it a neurological disease associated with a lack of sunshine. I came to that conclusion by noting that statistically those areas of the country with the highest density of liberals was also the sun deprived areas. Think NE, NW and basically the whole belt from Washington DC on the East to San Francisco on the West coast. So perhaps instead of it being neurologically based, it is actually hormonal – vitamin D is a hormone – true fact.

So, I just heard that the Gov’t is shutting down the cash for clunkers program because it went through the allocated funds so quickly. Hmmm, think maybe they got the clunker program and the Stimulus program ass backwards. Given the administrations stated objectives of boosting employment and cutting gas consumption, seems to me that if they had reversed the allocations – put $1B to fixing pot holes, and $800B into the clunker program, they might have actually accomplished something. Wonder if anybody there will be smart enough to reallocate some of that unspent stimulus money to extending the clunker program. Nah. Chances are they’ll add more to both. Cutting the clunker program is going to upset lots of people but my guess is that most of these people are not big supporters of the admin to start with. Most people driving around in old pick up trucks have to be Republicans. They’re ok with a 10-15 year old, barely broken in,150K mile, F-150. But to get a new truck with a $4500 kick in, just might do the trick and get them to spend some of that mattress money. I went through the exercise of speculating what it would take for me to trade in my clunker and drew a total blank. I guess if I could move into a new truck for a couple thousand, I’d give it consideration. But to actually pull the plug on my truck ………… that would be tough. Libs have already moved to Prius anyway.

I have an image of the big time libs, the high profiles guys like say Larry David or Barney Frank, buying a Prius to park in his driveway. He’d hire a double to drive it around – wearing a sports driving cap and dark glasses. You’d know it was him because his vanity plates would say Larry David’s Prius. But you can see Bush or Cheney driving around on their ranches in old pick ups- plates all but rusted away and covered with mud.

And while thinking about vehicles – just saw where some study found that people who are texting while driving are 4x as likely to be in an accident. Actually worse than drunk driving. Just using a cell phone, either hands on or hands free, doubles the likelihood of accidents – about the same as drunk driving. Probably lots worse in the aggregate since I would have to guess there are more texters on the road than drunks at any given time. The other surprising statistic is that truckers who use cell phones are 20x more likely to have an accident when using a phone. Wow! Wonder if MATD will form up and be as big a pain as MADD. These statistics have been proven over and over with both simulations and real world data. What is most interesting about this new information is that it was presented to the feds a couple of years back but shelved; that is not released to the public. The way it surfaced was by a Freedom of Information request for the report. Assuming the numbers are accurate or close to accurate, why has it been suppressed? My guess is because all those involved use cell phones or text from their cars.

So I’ve come up with new products to suit the times. Think of a handheld radar that the police use to check for speeders. My product will tell police if a cell phone is in use and it if it texting or voicing. This should be a big revenue collector and cut health care and insurance costs so what’s not to love about it. So you’re saying what if it’s not the driver who’s using the phone. So what. I think you’re not allowed to be quaffing a brewski in the car even if you’re a passenger. Same logic should apply, shouldn’t it? Or how about a device that parallels those engine starting devices requiring an alcohol offender to blow into a tube before the car will start. I have another product which jams cell phone usage in the car whenever the engine is running. Easy technology. I just want the same sort of justice brought to bear on cell phone users as drinkers.

Congrat’s to my great nephew Sean. Just finished 7th grade with top grades and an incredible SAT score. It was so good that he was awarded a recognition medal from Duke University. Very impressive Sean. I knew Sean was exceptionally bright when he was really young and could pronounce the names of dinosaurs that most of us just knew as big ole nasty lizards and was reading Harry Potter when he was 5 or something like that. Maybe 7 but really young. I didn’t truly believe it when he was telling me but when I quizzed him, sure enough he knew all the right answers.

Things are popping in Pierson. We now have 2 Dollar stores, a Chinese restaurant and a Pizza place. Let me clarify; there’s a place you can get something resembling Chinese food and a place that serves something approximating pizza. There was a soul food place and a family style restaurant but both of those cratered after a year or so.

If you like a vinaigrette type salad dressing, I’ve found the dressing to beat all dressings. We had dinner the other night at a friend’s house and she had this particular dressing. One taste and I was totally hooked. I can honestly say I’ve never had a better salad dressing or one that appeals to my tastes like this one. The only place that carries it around here is Fresh Market which luckily was only a mile or so away from where we were visiting. We stopped on the way home and picked up a couple of bottles. Five days later we were opening the second bottle and I realized that living 60 miles from the source was a problem. So I went on line, got a phone number, and 5 minutes later had a case of 12 bottles heading here. The brand is “Garlic Expressions”. The web site is garlic-expressions.com. The big difference I notice, aside from the great flavor, is that it’s not as oily or thick and gooey as most brands.

One of the crops out of the garden that I grow only to fill out space is okra. It seems to be able to deal with our heat when most other stuff is wilting away. Other than jambalya or deep frying what do you do with okra? oh, yeah, mix with tomatoes and serve over rice. That’s ok. But it doesn’t fit in the diet plans like beans or corn. Still, I wanted to try to do something with it. So I decided to grill it or roast it in a hot oven the same way we’ve done with asparagus and broccoli. I coat them with olive oil, salt and pepper and then grill/roast for 15 minutes in a 400 degree oven. Got the grill hot and then walked over to the garden to pick a handful of okra. First surprise is that ants like okra too. Not sure if they were fire ants but they were tiny and bit like fire. Get gloves, come back and continue picking. I washed off the ants, prepared as described, and popped them in the Holland grill along with the pork loin that was nearing completion. Took everything off the grill in 20 minutes and dug in. Turns out that cooking the okra was a bit different than the other veggies. Those that were under 3” were great. I mean really good. The bigger ones were like eating branches. I tried it again and increased the cooking time from 15 minutes to 25. Same result – small ones are great, big ones totally inedible. So one more try. This time I picked 3 sizes; small, medium and large. I boiled the medium ones for 5 minutes; the large ones for 10 and then put them all on the grill/oven for 20 minutes. Results – basically no change. The small ones are good but anything over 3” in not edible. Nancy thinks if maybe I roast them for an hour or so. I think I understand about Jambalaya now.

One thing all this rain has done is bring out the weeds. They love it. That would bother many gardeners who look at the weeds as enemies. Personally, I’ve come to terms with them. The deal is they can do whatever they want in what was once a lawn so long as they behave in the vegetable garden. My big adjustment was when I realized that the weeds make great compost. That allowed me to look at them as another crop just like the veggies – to be managed and harvested at just the right time. Anybody’s who’s checked out compost at the garden store knows how expensive it is. So if weeds make good compost, they become a cash crop of sorts and one to be taken with respect instead of as a waste of time. There’s an optimum time to harvest weeds. You want them when there is substantial green material but no seeds. That means you don’t get all twitchy when you see a couple of small weeds pop up. You just be patient and wait until there’s a good crop worthy of pulling. You have to pull them out with the roots so that there’s a bit of soil clinging to add to the compost pile bacteria. Another negative I’ve turned into a positive is that because they grow low to the ground, you have to bend over to pull them. Great exercise for the back and stomach muscles. In the heat and humidity of central Florida, I work up a sweat pulling weeds in just a few minutes and if I’m working a good crop, become a dripping mess in no time at all. That allows me to justify a piece of carrot cake or some other delight that would otherwise carry a big guilt burden. Now if I could only come up with some rationalization for the rabbits.
——————

With all the coverage of the moon walk anniversary, I’ve been giving it some thought and come to the conclusion that it’s really an embarrassment that all this happened 40 years ago and not one more trip attempted. And further, that we’re close to the end of the shuttle program with no real follow-on and a period of time when the only way to get to space will be via the Russians. And the current administration seems to be taking a path that will slow us down even further – not that the previous administration(s) did anything spectacular. I have a theory about why NASA dropped out of the moon business. The very first attempt was a success and they were afraid they couldn’t duplicate it. They realized just how lucky it was that everything worked so well and that a failure could devastate them as an agency. In hindsight, the right thing to have done was turn the space program over to the military and fund it as a national security issue. That allows for some cover in the event of failures and a rationale for proceeding even with risks involved. I suspect the fact that no other nation has even tried a manned shot to the moon is also because of the success of the first mission. All subsequent attempts will be measured against the American success and nobody wants to look bad. I also found it odd when I heard that they were still analyzing moon rock from the first trip. How the hell can you still be studying something from 40 years back unless it has extremely low priority? Give the rocks to the new kid who just graduated.

———————–
The passing of Walter Cronkite brought back lots of memories. My dad was a big fan – called him Cronky. Personally I preferred Chet Huntly, but when he died, I too switched to Cronkite. It was a ritual around our household when growing up – you ate dinner within a couple of minutes of dad coming home from work then sat around the tube to watch the Evening News. And it wasn’t just that way at our house – it was the way everybody I knew grew up. I think it elevated the intellectual level of the household conversations and gave us all a common base for discussions. When my aunts, uncles, and grandparents joined the fray, there were some great firework displays around the table or in the living room. It turned out later that we had an even closer connection to Walt. Nancy’s Uncle Vinny was a cameraman at CBS and often did the evening news. He knew Walter personally. So when they visited us or we visited them, he would give us the inside scoop on how these guys really were to work with. He was ok with Cronkite, hated Rather. Maybe that’s how come I have the same feelings.

We continue the wet weather pattern that started mid May. Almost every day we pick up between a quarter and a half inch with an occasional larger storm. The lake level has crept up a bit but not scary high. And the rain keeps the water temp very pleasant in the upper 80’s. Sure has played hell with the bass fishing though. You know when I’m not catching them, they are not catchable!!! One problem I have is that the driveway is growing. We have a gravel driveway that’s roughly 500′ long x 10′ wide and although it’s gravel, weeds grow up through the gravel and it requires an occasional shot of roundup to keep it under control. All this rain presents two problems – it grows faster and the roundup gets washed away before it can do it’s thing. I need one good dry day before it really gets out of hand.

The area north and east of us, Flagler County for those who know Fl geography, has probably gotten double our amounts. A bridge playing friend of Nancy has a very nice home in Palm Coast, inside Flagler County and has had a particularly interesting happening. Seems that the ground water level rose so dramatically after big rain in May, that her swimming pool “floated” out of the ground and is totally ruined. It rose 4′ wiping out the screened patio as well as the pool itself. She learned that her home owners insurance doesn’t cover her pool and neither does flood insurance since the water didn’t actually flow to the surface. She has cost estimates of $20,000 to get rid of the old pool – not install a new one, just clean up the mess. I have heard of empty pools floating and septic tanks floating but this was a new one on me.

And still no mosquitoes down by the dock where I sprayed the cutter potion. It said it lasted 8 weeks and I think we’re at least half way through that. In general the mosquito problem has abated but I still experience an occasional bite if I’m standing in an area that hasn’t been Cutterized.
—————–

Getting a little tired of this Supreme Court nominee’s hearings before the Senate judicial committee. For as long as I can remember or paid attention, the Senators vote strictly along party lines so whichever party has the most people on the committee carries the day. I think it was a smart move on the Dem’s to appoint a Saturday Night Live comic to the committee to balance out Orrin Hatch. The only time it really gets interesting is when the President and the majority in the Senate are from different parties. I’ll have to admit I was disappointed that they didn’t search just a little harder for a nominee. Somewhere out there is a gay, disabled, female Latina vegan with solar panels and windmills on the roof and a Prius in the garage. Personally I’d dump her for one and only one reason – 8 out of 10 of her circuit court rulings that went on to the Supreme court were reversed. What else do you need to know. And her decision against the New Haven Fire Fighters who passed the Captain’s test but were passed over because they were white, tells you all you need to know about where her head is on racial issues. But, fact is she’s going to be a member of the Supreme Court so they should just get on with it. She’ll be as good as Souter was for sure.

I went in for my annual physical and learned that my blood count was low. Not a big surprise for me and something I’ve dealt with on and off. I think I probably have a small gasket leaking somewhere. The doc said to take 300 mg of ferrous sulfate (iron) twice a day and then come back in 6 weeks for a check. That was the same prescription a year or two ago and it worked. Nancy said we still had some left from last time but we were in Publix and checked anyway. All the ferrous sulfate I picked up had numbers like 25-65 mg, nothing as big as 300 and I was fairly sure I remembered only taking one pill at a time before. So we didn’t pick any up and relied on being able to find some at home. Sure enough she found it but it too was only 65 mg of iron. So I took 5. But it was nagging on my mind that I didn’t remember taking 5 pills at a time, ever. So I picked up the bottle and read all the fine print About midway through, in parentheses, it says (equivalent to 325 mg of ferrous sulfate). So I had overdosed by 5x. I’ve never heard of anyone dying from an iron overdose except in a car crash or maybe the tin man in the Wizard of Oz. so I guessed that the worst that could happen was I would get rusty and have to start taking WD40 as an antidote. 24 hours later, I haven’t changed colors, don’t squeak when I walk and haven’t had to use the WD 40 anywhere. It also makes sense to me to back off the iron for a few days. Somebody said that it caused constipation – if so, this might be a 5 stick of dynamite clean out job ahead of me. Other than that, I passed the physical with flying colors.

And while I’m discussing personal health issues, I’ve always had high blood pressure. Not killer dog high, but a bit above normal. Typical for me is 135 over 85. I’ve seen it may 10% higher but not too often. Two years ago the doctor gave me a very mild med to bring it down a tad. It didn’t change at all and I found one blood pressure machine in Publix that lowered it about 10 points so I fixed the problem by just checking it there. Also I have a digestive track issue that needs a daily hit of Prilosec. Lots of old guys have this same problem. But I also had a pain/burning right in the chest which over the past year had gotten more persistent. Nothing I could really call painful but just something right there in the heart area. So it was a bother. In the middle of May I remember that a friend had told me that he had solved his gastro problem by taking a couple tablespoons of natural apple cider vinegar. Natural means unpasturized and with the “mother” bacteria still included. I found it in the natural.organic foods section in Publix. I took a swig and within 2 seconds the chest pain was gone. So I just added a swig as part of my daily routine and in 2 months have never had the problem again – and it was a multi, daily occurrence before that. Now here’s the interesting part – a few days after taking the vinegar, I checked my blood pressure – just a routine check, no special reason. It was 115 over 75. Fairly low for me and I took it as an anomaly and also since it was during Nancy’s trip to Utah, I assumed I was just more relaxed. Since then, it has almost always been in the low teens for the front reading and low 70’s for the back reading. At the doc’s office it was 110 over 60. So it had nothing to do with Nancy’s absence and the only thing that has changed in my routine is taking that swig of vinegar. I’m thinking about staying on with what I’m doing through the summer and if it’s still low, dropping the blood pressure med for a while. I haven’t read anywhere that the vinegar should drop my blood pressure so my theory is that whatever the vinegar is fixing, was perhaps the cause of the high blood pressure in the first place. That’s the kind of stuff that makes sense to an engineer. Nancy’s logic is to not change anything at all – don’t mess with success. That’s probably why women live longer than engineers.
———————————–
The Obama admin is working out ok for me. I was unhappy with Bush and his spending habits. The Republicans needed a wake up call that they are supposed to be conservative and not big gov’t spenders. Obama and the Dem’s in Congress are pushing the spending to unbelievable levels and starting to get the tax machine in full gear. That, coupled with the Kumbayah foreign policy, should make the Dem dominance a short lived situation.
And I was sure glad to hear the G8 conference was such a success. I guess the big accomplishments were that they jointly released a statement that Iran and NK are bad guys for pursuing nukes. But even more importantly they agreed to drop the global temperature by 2-3 degrees by 2050. Aside from all the evidence that says the globe is cooling, the nice thing about the agreement is that it is politically perfect. First all the signatories will be dead by 2050 or too decrepit to care. But even nicer, none of the big, growing economies such as China or India are involved. So if in fact the temps are down a couple of degrees, it was because these visionaries took action; if the goals are not met, it was because the Chinese and Indians wouldn’t sign up. Wonder how many $$ were spent cumulatively on the G8 conference.

I guess this group is better than the UN since nobody there ever agrees on anything controversial or requiring action but it just doesn’t seem like the right group for the US to be hanging with. Historically speaking, the US is a teenager meeting with a bunch of geriatric countries. I’m thinking we should be hooking up with countries more our own age – such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. That would be an action based group compared to the old fogies who like to sit around, smoke big cigars, sip cognac and talk about the good old days – back a thousand years or so. To qualify for our group, you couldn’t have existed as a country for more than say 300 years, you have to be a democracy so that everybody can make lots of noise and your population has to be at least 90% nonnative. That means that the basic gene pool is quite diverse and founded on people who were adventurous enough and tough enough to try something new. The group would be totally unhooked to battles or insults that occurred thousands of years ago. That’s why I like countries with big immigration policies. They’re loading up with people that have the gumption to get away from the old fogy places where they are too far down the totem pole to ever break through. I’d just like to see the population growth balanced by sending those Americans who think things are so much better in Europe, back to Europe. Like, send Kerry to France.

Current events
Ok, I’ve had enough Michael Jackson retrospectives. He was big in the generation after me so I never really connected. But then I’m not sure he ever connected either and struck me as a really confused guy. He seemed to be the ultimate mental if not physical mix. If you looked at him you weren’t sure if he was black or white; not sure if he was male or female; not sure if he was 15 or 50. And there really was only one way he was going to pass – a drug overdose. Going to be interesting to see how the kids are handled. I have doubts as to whether he’s the biological father but even so, not sure they can just be passed on as property with a biological mother in the background.

I was certainly surprised by Sarah Palin’s resignation. I didn’t think she’d have a chance at election outside of Alaska but figured she’d stay in politics there with an occasional appearance at conventions and big Republican party functions. She is simply too good looking to ever capture a significant share of the female vote. Women will only vote for a hatchet face like Margaret Thatcher, Betty Friedan, Nancy Pelosi and the like. – I guess it’s a threat kind of thing. Alaska has a higher population of males and we look at it differently. We think all politicians are the same so why not have eye candy. My guess is that she’ll become a conservative media person – probably a talk show hostess in the image of Rush or Sean Hannity. That will give her a big stage and a big payday and let her stay in Alaska with her family. What I can’t figure is why anyone that likes to hunt moose and catch salmon would ever want to live in DC. I think she came to her senses.

And the Mark Sanford thing is a hoot. Everybody is saying his wife should dump him. Wrong – she should just make sure he has plenty of life insurance. This guy has a terminal case of the dumb ass or a terminal case of the hoof in mouth disease. Her best play is to get him to keep spilling his guts, take copious notes, and write a book after he chokes to death on his hoof.
—————————–
A couple of new birds on the scene. They must be buddies – Jim and Bob. I know that because one calls Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy and the other calls Bob White. I guess it could be Bob calling Jinny and not Jimmy and there’s something romantic going on but I’m sticking with the good buddy thoughts. Had a woodpecker banging on our metal roof today. How dumb is that? It really rocked the house. The other bird thing today was that right after a hard shower today, there was a puddle in the driveway – not a big puddle, perhaps a foot across. A Cardinal landed in it and took about a 5 minute bath. I thought about getting him a bar of soap but Nancy thought a towel was a better choice. He flew off just before we got our act together. It could be my imagination but I do believe that there are quite a few more birds here this summer than I ever remember. At almost any given time I can sit at the computer looking out the window toward the lake and see dozens of birds of 4-6 different varieties. Right now I’m spotting woodpeckers, doves, cardinals,bluebirds and a couple unknowns.

Wow, did we have a hot week. The silver lining is that it seems to have put down the mosquitos. It’s noticeably cooler – not so hot – down on the dock where we’ve had a consistent breeze. It feels at least 10 degrees cooler there than at the house, 150′ away. So my routine now is to get all my yard and garden work done between 8 and 11 AM. Then dive in the lake, dry off on the dock listening to XM, fish with a large bait fish so I’m not bothered with too much action, and reading a mystery novel. By about 2 PM it’s even too hot on the dock so I wimp out to the A/C.

Our pair of wood ducks that show up every spring is now a family of 5. I saw something interesting last week when the duck family started off across the lake. It takes them maybe 5 minutes to get across and when they were about halfway, an eagle took off and headed for them. I figured I was going to see a disaster of some sort especially when the eagle did a narrow circle about 50′ over the ducks. He then swooped down and scooped up a fish very close to the ducks and took his catch back to the trees. The thing that amazed me was that the ducks did not seem phased at all so maybe eagles don’t bother wood ducks and they knew it.

Our migratory birds from Mexico are here in big numbers. I know they’re from Mexico because they call out “burrito, burrito”. We also have some feathered visitors from New York. They call out “here, here” but say it with a NY accent – “heah, heah”. I have no idea what kind of birds all of these are – just their place of origin.

The garden got clobbered big time in the last month with all the rain. According to the weather guru’s, we’ve had over 300% of normal in the past month and it fairly well wiped me out. According to others, we did fairly well. A good onion crop, nice cucumbers, and about half the peppers survived. The squash nominally rotted on the vine and the tomatoes have not fared much better. We probably got 30% of the corn to harvest. It was really good, just not enough of it. But all the local family gardens and small farms were wiped out 100%. I have to admit that I have always opposed big farm subsidies but now I’m on their side. You can work your heart out and one good storm or a couple weeks of unusual weather and you’re history.

One crop that made it big time was the Guardian Marigolds. This is a variety I planted specifically for nematode control The instructions on the seed packet said to plant densely and I did. I’ve seen lots of marigolds and grown varieties advertised as “giant”. That has always meant about 2′ tall. Turns out that Guardians grow 4′-5′ tall. Not only that they grow twice as fast as anything else so it’s realistic to say that they have taken over the garden. I have chopped and chopped to allow the other veggies to get a shot at some sunlight but in a few days, the Guardians have taken over again. They do seem to be working in that I haven’t seen any signs of nematodes this season but next season I need to scale way back on the density. I’m taking the greenery to the compost pile as I chop at it and will till the roots in place. My hope is that this will give me protection next time with fewer live plants.

Another accidental success was a faux spinach called Malabar Spinach. I planted it last year and it was a semi success. It grew well all summer long but only George and I really liked it. It grows as a vine with deep green thick leaves, red, red vine stems, and quick, white flowers and seeds. I found, well actually Nancy’s friend Wilma found, that you can eat the leaves, stems, and the flowers. Nancy didn’t really care for the thick leaves or the “slimy” texture inside the leaves. The nematodes ended the crop last year but while it was going it was luxurious. I decided not to plant it again since neither Nancy nor Barbara cared for it but as it turns out, it’s a self seeding variety. Self seeding in a big way. I kept pulling out the renegades but missed a few. Now I’ve got several strong plants climbing up the tomato trellis. I pull a few leaves every day and put them on sandwiches and Nancy asked me to pick a pile so she could see how it worked in spinach dip. The dip was well received and nobody noticed that it wasn’t regular spinach so based on that, I’m going to increase the crop a bit and plan on this variety as a good summer plant in Florida.

Another crop that is looking pretty good – survived the rains and producing are the egg plants. Eggplant are something I really like to grow but don’t eat myself. Seems like everybody else likes it ok and the plants really dress up the garden so I persist trying to find a variety or recipe that I like. I’m going to try one when these mature. The recipe calls for slicing the eggplant in half, coating it with Italian dressing and grilling. The variety is called Lavender Touch and is a very light white/purple color that the seed catalog says is a great variety for grilling.

Why I think maybe my garden didn’t get totally wiped out is that over the past two years I have continually added organic matter. I’ve done that to improve the quality of the soil but in the process, it’s added quite a large mass so that the garden generally is sitting almost 2′ higher than the surrounding ground level. That means the garden has better drainage than it would as a ground level garden and is probably the reason I had some survivors. I’m going to test that theory by implementing a “till and hill” approach to laying out the garden. By that I mean I’ll create elevated rows that are over 2′ high relative to the garden level. I’m thinking that will give me at least another foot of drainage or dry root zone. That involves quite a bit more manual labor but if it works, ………………………. Elevating rows and hilling is common practice in many places but I figured I could get away without the added labor. Proving the old adage that nothing’s ever easy.

Anyway – aside from the failures to date, I’m going to try a few new plantings. Not too much since I suspect the summer heat and humidity here will not be conducive to a good summer crop.
————–

I think I figured out part of my problem with understanding Obama’s positions. In a speech the other day concerning Iran, he said he was “appalled and outraged”. Trouble is that he said it with exactly the same voice tonation and facial expressions he used to be “concerned” or “gravely concerned”. He could have replaced the word outraged with happy and it would have sounded the same. If you are expressing outrage, you have to shout it and bang your fist on the table or something that punctuates the words. He uses exactly the same tone of voice regardless of what he’s discussing or whether he’s positive or negative on a subject. On the other hand when you watch the Iranian leader, for example, you have no idea what he’s saying but you can just look at him and tell when he’s really pissed. Think about it – when your significant other is mad at you, there’s no doubt about it. If she or he was speaking Martian, you would still know that you had screwed up and exactly how badly. You can tell if this is something that will be over and done with in 10 minutes or if you’re in deep dooky for days. You could even turn the sound down – you can’t of course, but just say you could – and by looking into her/his eyes and looking at their face and body language, you understand the depth of the anger. With Obama, without hearing the words, you wouldn’t know if he was talking about his daughter’s birthday or the North Korean’s setting off another A-bomb.

I’ve been engaged in battle with ATT for a week or so after receiving a letter from them saying that I was not supposed to be using my dial-up line to access the internet and they could discontinue my service with no further notice. That’s kind of threatening.

A little background. We hooked up to the landline in 2001 or 2 when we were snow birding from Utah. We had local service only and used calling cards for long distance when necessary. When we moved in full time in 2003 we found that the local area did not allow us toll free access to AOL. The closest access point was Daytona Beach which was outside our call area – same area code, same county but outside the calling range. So we added what was called extended range which got us to Daytona and solved the problem. Fast forward to 2007. ATT called and said that if we wanted to add unlimited long distance calling, it would only add a couple of dollars to what we were paying. It sounded too good to be true so I questioned it aggressively and was assured that this was an ok upgrade. Sure enough the bill went up a couple of $$ but we have had unlimited long distance coverage. Fast forward now to April. We received a vaguely worded letter from ATT saying that we were perhaps not using our telephone service per the contract. I called the toll free number suggested and a customer service rep told me that everything was fine and the letter was sent in error. And, oh by the way, for $1/month I could add voice mail, caller ID and a few other goodies. So i figured the letter was really a back door way to get a sales call in and not violate blocks on telephone soliciting. I did buy the added service. Monday we got another letter from ATT saying that we could not use our phone to access the internet and that they could discontinue our service with no further notice. Definitely sounded more serious so I immediately called the toll free number. I kind of expected they were going to try to sell me something again. Instead the service rep told me that you can’t use a personal voice line to access the internet and never could. It was, supposedly, in the fine print of my contract with ATT -I don’t ever remember seeing a contract. He said he’d put me on some kind of access + and that might work but he didn’t really think so.

My next move was to call the Florida Public Service Commission. The gal there was quite helpful but said that the state had no control over anything internet. I asked about the FCC and she said they were brain dead and would just send me back to the state. She said she could connect me to the Executive Admin offices of ATT which she did. The person there identified herself as Brandy Alexander, and said that something didn’t sound right and that somehow a computer was spitting out the letter when it shouldn’t but she would turn it over to a techy type to look into it further and get back with me. True to her word, I got a call the next day from a Customer Care Representative that seemed to understand what was going on. He asked what my AOL access numbers were and found that, according to his system, the Daytona numbers I was accessing were within my range and should be normal, toll free calls. He asked if I was putting a “1” in front of the number – I do – and that if I just put in the 7 digit phone number, the problem would go away. Nope – when I do that, there’s an intercept that tells me I have to put a “1” or a “0” as a prefix to complete the call. That generated a big hmmmmmmmm from the guy. So he said he was turning this over to the repair department since I should be able to dial Daytona as part of my standard local calling range. If that’s true, I never needed to go the extended range from the get go. He also checked on the other, non-Daytona, exchanges that AOL lists as ok access points for me; that would be Orange City and Debary. Both are in Volusia County, have 386 area codes, and are physically about as far from me as Daytona. But it turns out that those exchanges are not ATT. Upon closer examination, I noted that I was calling those two exchanges more often than Daytona because of heavy traffic into Daytona. I didn’t realize any of this – that those two were not ATT or that they were any different than any other exchange. I also didn’t realize I was using them.

The repair dept called as promised and said that indeed I had to dial the 1 to get to the Daytona exchange and more importantly, that the original letter was generated because I was using Debary and Orange City. I deleted those numbers from my dialing sequence So I think the problem is solved. Not sure how they thought I would know which exchanges are ATT and which are not or that unlimited long distance calling doesn’t really mean unlimited long distance calling.
——————
Politics

I’m trying to get my arms around Obama’s words so I can understand him better. For example, not sure which of these two statements is more tougher: “I am deeply concerned and going to try to get the UN to put out a new resolution” or; “I am gravely concerned and going to try to get the UN to put out a new resolution.” I’m fairly sure both mean that we’re not going to do anything but not sure exactly what words he would use to mean something is actually going to happen. All the analysts say he is sending a message. Ok, what’s the message? Hillary said we’re thinking about putting North Korea back on the list of bad guys – that’ll show em we mean business.

The administration has boxed itself in a bit by totally denouncing the Bush foreign policy and essentially saying that the NK’s and the Iranians are not really evil folks and that you just have to approach them with open arms and an open mind. They are both now driving tanks through the open arms. I think the Reagan and Bush approach is fundamentally easier – you are all evil jerks, now prove to me that you’re not. That way if they respond positively, as in the case of Gorbachov, you’re a hero for holding tough; if they stay in character as bad guys, you’re still ok because you had already predicted that and based your policy on them staying the course. Obama comes off looking naive which is exactly the charge against him from the get go. He’s also trapped into not being able to say anything really nasty about them because it was only a few months back that he was talking them up as being really ok guys. So again he looks wimpy. My gut tells me he’s going to have to shoot down an NK missile or something to put that behind him. It’s even worse when France, the wimpiest of the wimps, is sounding tougher than the USA. Clinton tried lobbing a couple of cruise missiles into tents in the desert and wiping out an aspirin factory but could never shake the Blackhawk down image. I’m starting to smell another Jimmy Carter administration.

But on the plus side – nice catch. I was impressed seeing Obama catch the pesky fly during an interview. It cracked me up when PETA or some other animal rights group got on his case for being cruel to animals.. These folks never met fire ants. I got to wondering if that move was made to impress the NK’s with his speed and ferocity – you know an Asian marshal arts move. I was pretty impressed with NBC’s journalism too – home in on the dead fly so we could see it was a real event. I don’t think McCain could have moved that quickly.