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Corn and shrimp on the barbie

 Apologies for not posting a blog last weekend. I actually wrote a draft but it was coming out in scattered chunks and more confused than usual.  Could have been the equally scattered choice in music I pulled from the bottom of the 'Friends of the Library' sale bag. I have learned that music not only helps me write but does effect what I write, weird. Kindly, the Google blog site (perhaps with my Luddite help!) managed to not save those ramblings. Thus these are fresh from the garden ramblings not re-worked composted malarke!
  I just came in from spreading some mulch in the garden and thus my mind was on heat when selecting the music. Nuyorican Soul https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yaGFMG6rMY is a mixed bag of artist but includes some Tito Puente and seems to have a good Latin jazz rythmn. I'm following it with straight Tito Puente and his Latin All Stars. With a big glass of iced (eclipse sun;~) tea that should cool me down and get me ready to go back to the garden.
 I noticed in neatening up the beds one of my winter savory plants was completely dead.  They all seem well established and I hadn't noticed any signs of problems. Alive, healthy, and flowering, one week and completely dead the next, odd. The hail two weeks back still has most things looking beat. The corn is showing it's resilience with some big new leaves adding to the shredded ones feeding the plants.  I never expected much from the corn but am pleased to see some ears tasseling. If winter holds off I might just have some blue semi sweet corn to throw on the grill for a final backyard cookout. A little habanero salt and butter Mmmm!  
 Also beat but showing it's own variety of resilience is the butternut squash. The existing squash were far enough along that if the vines had died I could have cooked and eaten the squash. The seeds wouldn't have been viable but I've got an old stash and squash seeds seem to keep quite some time.  The flavor of the younger squash is if I recall less pronounced so I'll let them mature as long as they can on the vine.  The vines I frankly forgot to water the last two weeks which was dumb as plants struggling to recover after hail need no other stresses. My squash is a fairly tough although it looks like crap with all the new growth coming at the end of the vine and the existing vine showing all it's wounds.
 My resilience is best displayed in some short season seeds I've tucked in every bare spot in the beds after the hail.  I've generally in the past done something to keep the ground planted as much as possible.  The hail just added a bit more 'need' to do some planting. A garden needs some hope when it gets beat up. I suspect it's part of the human condition that explains my Baby Boom generation coming after a World War. I couldn't tell you if the pak choi, arugula, spinach and the rest will reach the kitchen. But it's still is nice to see their sprouts green young and alive. Kinda like having kids in the neighborhood.   
  Resilience is an odd word I'm not sure if a dictionary definition can describe it's broad importance. I've always seen life as a struggle between things which add and subtract from your resilience. Kind of an ultimate game. You start life with very little on the scoreboard. Hopefully, a good set of parents and environment to make it till you're out on your own.  Most of us make that leap out on our own with some memorable lean years. I recall sitting under a pecan tree across from my tiny apartment in New Mexico eating pecans that had dropped. The squirrel in the tree wasn't happy but I was. I think my entire pantry supply of food was a two pound bag of rice. Pecans were like striking it rich.
 I still like pecans. Thankfully I've added a bit more to the pantry in most aspects of my life and increased my resilience. I understand it but still find it difficult accept that so many people have so little resilience.  I'm not Donald Trump wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. But I think I was reading most Americans couldn't come up with $500 for an emergency. That's living thin. Yet Americans are famously obese and obesity is rough on the body's resilience. Again me, I could lose 10 pounds (OK 20 Ppppttt to you for saying it!) but I get to the gym and walk and try to leave most of the bad choices of my youth as memories.   I've heard our grocery/ food system has a stockpile of 3 days (9 meals!) without shipments coming in.  Yet most of us don't have a pantry much larger than that ourselves.  Blizzards happen. Our Country has been draining the wealth of the land since I don't know when. When was the last simply balanced budget. Never mind the $20,000,000,000,000 in debt with the limit surely soon to be raised. It's one thing to take a little breather vacation on the credit card but you can't stay on vacation forever.
  A cop once told me you can rob a bank and reasonable expect to get away with it.  He added, If you do it while driving a car that has a broken tail light is low on gas or has bald tires you're an idiot.
 No doubt you can do everything right and still end up like my little savory plant dead 'cause who knows why. No doubt getting thwacked by hail three times in a season you ain't getting a braggin' rights harvest. But maybe with a little resilience in the scheme you can enjoy a little corn on the grill.
  The afternoon is nice and cloudy so I better get back to shoveling wood chips onto the garden. Then off to the cabin tomorrow to do some odds and ends. A good article before I go which not only shows Mother nature is resilient but also shows the value of mulch - no matter the type. - Doug A.
http://newatlas.com/orange-peel-forest-costa-rica/51012/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=b889836588-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-b889836588-90453549          

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